Magical Guardian Ranma: Beta Edition
by Tangent
Summary: Rewrite of MGR, collected into longer chapters and with additional material: Having been found worthy of a higher purpose by the spirits of Jusenkyo, Ranma is now a Magical Guardian Beast destined to lead a team of Magical Girls. Gothic Horror Sex Comedy
1. Chapter 1

_**MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA: BETA EDITION**_

**MGR: Director's Cut**

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR:

This is the Beta version of Magical Guardian Ranma. Besides simply collecting shorter chapters into longer ones, some sections actually _have_ been rewritten and there is additional material, so hopefully those of you who have enjoyed the Alpha version won't be bored with this one.

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Golden Arms

Lord Talon

and… some guy named Steve.

LAST EDITED: 

8/21/2010 (Costume descriptions revised to match current conception)

9/02/2010 (Some minor plot holes patched and some details added)

DISCLAIMER:

'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanfics, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even _gasp_ American comic books!).

TAGS:

Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse

This should worry some of you…

**PROLOGUE:**

Genma looked out across the sea from the railing of the ship that was taking him back to Japan. Another expense he hadn't planned on, but again the cost was much less due to Ranma's current state.

When? When did things start going so terribly wrong? Was it at Jusenkyo?

Most of the training grounds Genma had taken Ranma to over the years had legends that were just that - legends with no current basis in reality other than historical curiosity. Even those whose legends were active had only amounted to a few interesting adventures and minor inconveniences at worst. Nothing a couple of martial artists couldn't handle when it came right down to it. The boy got to feel good about helping people out, and if Genma himself was enriched in any way, that was just a side benefit, right?

However, the fact that the last cursed training ground on their planned route was remarkably active, and turned out to have the effect that it did, was entirely unforeseen.

Genma felt that he had really let Ranma down this time with his habit of just bulling ahead and damn the costs and advice. If only he had actually paid more attention to the guide, other than just enough to actually get to Jusenkyo...

If he had had listened to the man ahead of time, neither he nor Ranma would have been cursed at all. If only the Nyanniichuan had not effected Ranma the way it had, then perhaps the Nannichuan would have helped his son the way it had helped him.

The... incident... at Joketsuzoku was also a result of some poor decisions on his part. Eating the prize for the annual village tournament had not endeared him to any of the Chinese Amazons. Oh, they had spared him, for Ranma's sake if nothing else, but Genma was under no illusions that he held any respect in their eyes. About the only good they saw in him was his desire to find a cure for his son.

Leaving as he had, in the middle of the night with Ranma, wasn't likely to win over any of the Amazons either, but Genma couldn't allow his son to remain in Shampoo's hands with the way the arrogant girl was treating him! If Ranma was going to belong to anyone, let it be one of the Tendo daughters! It would be a way to keep the pledge after all...

Perhaps the only way...

Tears of a father who deeply and truly regretted the actions that had cost his son so much poured unhindered down Genma's grief-stricken face.

The Guide and the Amazons had called it an honor...

They had said that the Nyanniichuan would have turned Ranma into a girl had Jusenkyo not found him worthy of a higher purpose...

_Damn them!_ A girl would have been much better than this!

Genma looked down at the sapphire lens clenched tightly in his fist.

"Don't worry Ranma... I'm certain one of the Tendo girls will be able set you free..."

**CHAPTER ONE:**

Soun looked down the table where his daughters were lined up sitting in their kimonos. Originally, when he told them about the upcoming engagement, there was a collective firestorm due to his admittance that he had never even met their prospective fiancé. However, he was confident that his daughters would see reason. Granted, Akane still appeared to be less than happy with the whole arranged marriage issue. On the other hand, Nabiki seemed to have some hopes of finding Ranma to be acceptable, and had Kasumi's open support from day one.

The photo-sticker adorning the upper right-hand corner of the written side of the postcard that now rested on the family room table depicted the bust of a young man about the same age as either Akane or Nabiki, with blue eyes, a confident smirk, and slightly unruly hair. The boy was wearing a plain white martial arts gi, and what little could be seen of the background suggested that it was taken at a temple.

It was really too bad that Ranma would not be coming himself this time, but obviously the boy had suffered some sort of training injury and was now in a hospital in China. That was a possible risk of training on the road. Still, it must not be too bad if he was still sending a gift for one of his prospective fiancées.

Occasionally, one or another of his daughters examined the postcard even now. Soun, of course, had memorized its every detail during the prior two days.

Akane, growing bored with waiting, frowned as she ran her hands through her long, lustrous black hair, then picked up the postcard yet again…

**_Tendo,_**

**_Something happened to Ranma in China. I am coming Saturday afternoon with his token. If one of your daughters can accept it, then Ranma is hers. Hopefully the situation with Ranma will change soon._**

_**With Regret, Genma Saotome**._

Akane huffed. Obviously Ranma couldn't be all that hot of a martial artist if he had gotten himself hurt bad enough that he was stuck in some hospital in China. Still, she tried not to think too badly of the boy.

With two days to digest the news, Akane wasn't nearly as upset as she had been when she first found out about the arrangement. Not that she was at all happy with her father for having made it, but the extra time allowed her to think some things through

She knew something of the injuries that a martial artist could get while training, and it had to be pretty bad if Ranma's father was leaving him back in China to make this visit. So this promise must have a lot of honor involved.

At least as far as the fathers were concerned.

Akane noticed that Nabiki seemed to be interested. As Akane's interest with boys near her own age had plummeted, thanks to a certain upperclassman at school, she was only too happy to encourage her sister's interests instead.

"I'm not getting married to some strange boy," Akane huffed, passing the postcard to Kasumi as her elder sister gestured for it.

"No one was saying that you had to, Akane," Kasumi said gently as she placed the card back onto the table just so. He was really too young for her to be interested in herself, but he had a nice face and with Nabiki's interest, she was sure that it would all work out.

"Look," Nabiki said as she reached over and took the postcard herself. "We've already gone over this over and over again for two days now. I already said that I'll do it, so just leave it alone, Akane. Some of us are actually looking forward to this."

Nabiki turned the card over in her hands as her sisters lapsed into silence once again. She was, indeed, looking forward to this meeting. Granted, Ranma himself wouldn't be there, but he was sending a gift of some sort. Very proper, and something that Kasumi approved of naturally, but in this day and age Nabiki simply respected the fact that he was bothering to send one at all.

The photo-sticker showed a boy near her own age who had a confident smile. Nabiki thought that she could get used to a smile like that. And he had those remarkable blue eyes, so rare among the Japanese, lending an exotic air to his appearance.

Maybe he was stuck in China due to an injury at the moment, but his father obviously thought that he'd get better. Most likely, it wasn't something that would become a permanent liability. Once Ranma finally arrived, perhaps she could convince her father to take in more students again with Ranma as an assistant. Money wasn't too bad now, but with her Daddy practically behaving as if he had retired with only Akane and a handful of sporadic students, it wasn't too good either.

Accepting an engagement to Ranma was a possible way out of this potentially bad situation. It didn't hurt that he was easy on the eyes either. Maybe not the most handsome by any standard, but attractive enough. And well trained to boot! She hoped that he got better soon though. If he was laid up too long, his skills would take a while to get back to whatever level he had originally raised them to.

Then again, Nabiki thought, best not to count dividends until they mature. So no arranging for tournaments for him to enter until she knew he could make a good showing...

Soun, being fairly pragmatic about it, let Nabiki stake her claim and acknowledged that it had his support as well, although, for his purposes, he'd be just about as pleased no matter which daughter accepted the engagement. In fact, he had been planning on letting the boy make his own choice, but since Ranma couldn't be here, it fell to his daughters to decide among themselves instead. About the only downside was that no matter which daughter inherited the property as a dowry, at least one of the others was likely to move out afterwards for one reason or another.

Oh well, at least with Nabiki, he'd be assured that the financial end of the dojo would be secure. And it was nice seeing her smile pleasantly for a change, as opposed to the nasty smirk she had been cultivating lately.

O O O

Genma stepped out of the taxi, happy to have missed the morning rain, having decided to wait at the hotel until it was closer to the time he had said he'd arrive.

Now that he arrived though, it finally occurred to him that all of this free spending was cutting into money he could be using for expenses when he searched for a cure to Ranma's condition. He briefly considered selling the two inch diameter gemstone lens before smacking himself in the face.

Hard.

Beyond the fact that it was made of sapphire, making it too expensive for anyone to leave where he could easily steal it back from them, the fact that he was even _considering_ selling Ranma's token showed him that he still had far to go if he really wanted to atone for the actions that had cost his son so much.

So very much...

Genma paid the cab driver and then turned to go through the front gate of the Tendo home and dojo. Fighting to maintain his composure, he gathered the packs, and turned to face an uncertain meeting...

O O O

"Daughters," Soun started formally, once Genma was inside and seated, "This is my good friend, Genma Saotome, Ranma's father. Genma, these are my three daughters, Kasumi (age nineteen), Nabiki (age seventeen), and Akane (age sixteen)..."

Genma remained silent a moment longer, unable to find his voice now that the time had come. Just when everyone was beginning to wonder if he would actually say anything or not, he set a round blue disc just large enough to fit in the palm of a hand on the table before the three daughters. "Here," his gruff voice heavy with the emotional strain he was under. "This is Ranma's... Whoever..." Genma trailed off, unsure of how to explain the unbelievable.

Nabiki picked up the translucent blue lens. It was certainly pretty enough, and didn't feel like it was made of plastic. In fact, she thought that it felt like stone. A shiver ran down her spine as she considered that it might be a real gemstone. The possibility that she was holding a honest-to-kami sapphire, and the fortune that it might represent, made her feel weak...

"What? Did Ranma send us a slimy gel packet?" Akane asked skeptically, noticing her sister's reaction. She reached over to grab the thing out of Nabiki's hand, which prompted the middle Tendo daughter to draw it protectively in towards her bosom.

Which is when things began to turn freaky!

Light shined from the stone clutched in Nabiki's hand, a bright aura that cast the room in shades of blue. Nabiki's kimono - indeed, everything she wore, including the light make up she had put on - flowed into the sapphire lens as if it were all water.

"What the?" Akane exclaimed, as she pulled back rapidly, having lost the right sleeve and a portion of the upper torso of her own kimono as they too were drawn into the sapphire lens. Not to mention half her bra and her own make-up.

Kasumi, who had been sitting on the other side of Nabiki, rolled to her right and scooted behind her father before her own kimono lost more than just a slight bit of color from the left sleeve. She and Soun gazed in awe at what was happening to the middle Tendo daughter.

Nabiki, for her part, was speechless. She uncurled from her seated position as she floated weightlessly, naked as the day she was born. Her hair shifted to a deep blue hue while her eyes became a vibrant green. Then ribbons of water poured forth from the gem, slowly swirling around Nabiki's bare body. Several ribbons spiraled in on Nabiki's hands and feet forming snug gloves and boots with running shoe soles. As those were finishing up, several other ribbons began to paint a sleeveless halter top and bicycle shorts combo on her that left her midriff bare and fit like her own skin. The final ribbons of water painted an inverted triangular cup with the kanji for water on her shorts at the 'bikini spot'. The whole outfit had a water motif, done in shades of deep ocean blue, with crystal blue lagoon trim.

There was a silver rimmed fitting on the back of the right glove that seemed to be just the right size for the lens. Curious, Nabiki's grip on the sapphire lens relaxed as she prepared to switch it to her left hand so she could see if it fit into the fixture. However, it popped out of her hand and flew into the setting on its own just as Nabiki settled gently on her feet, gravity once again establishing it's hold on her.

Just as she started to wonder about the transformation, something else popped out of the lens, settling on the table in front of her. It was small, about the size of a cat or rabbit, and looked kind of like a kangaroo rat with blue fur.

"Um... Hi, I'm Ranma," it said, looking up at Nabiki. "Sorry 'bout this..."

There was much silence in response, as this statement had been made by something that resembled a cartoon rodent. Mostly because what had just happened was so far out of nearly everyone's experience, other than those of Genma Saotome, that they had a hard time believing that it had occurred after all. This, in the face of the magical rodent's continued existence on their table despite their natural inclination not to believe that it was there, left the Tendo family in a bit of a quandary.

"WAAAAH! Ranma! How could I have let this happen to my son?" Genma cried out in grief and self loathing as he burst forth a font of tears to rival any that Soun had been known for. In a way, this reassured the Tendo sisters that what was happening was real after all, however strange. Ranma, on the other hand (or paw, if you prefer) was looking at his father as if he had grown another head.

"Whoa, Pop! Get a grip already!" Ranma looked at his father in worry. "Pop? Are you feeling well? You've lost weight since the last time I was out..."

"WAAAAH! My noble son is worried about my health despite what I did to him!" Genma cried out again, slamming his fist down onto the table, causing a small crack to form.

"Stop that! You're embarrassing me!" Ranma hopped off of the table, glaring at his father.

"WAAAAH! My son is ashamed of me!" Genma wailed, banging his head repeatedly on the table. The Tendos sweat-dropped as they struggled to restrain the hefty martial artist from further hurting himself. Or further damaging their table for that matter…

"NOW CUT THAT OUT!" Ranma snapped. Surprisingly, Genma did seem to calm down at that. "Now, if you're done cryin' that river, could you tell me where we are? This ain't Joketsuzoku, Pop. The building style is all wrong, there are way too many modern features, and we were the only Japanese there anyway."

"We are back in Japan, Ranma," Genma explained. "In the Nerima ward, just outside of Tokyo, to be specific. This is my good friend Soun Tendo, and these are his daughters. One of them was to be your bride. If only..." Genma's voice grew halting and sorrowful yet again. "If only I had never taken you to that cursed place! Jusenkyo! Why have you taken my son from me! WAAAAH!"

At this point, Soun picked up the table and slammed it down on his old friend, knocking him out before he could damage anything else.

Ranma cocked a furry little eyebrow at this, then shrugged, figuring that his father deserved that. Then he looked over towards the man and the girls curiously. "Um... Could somebody run that by me again? It sounded like my Pop brought me over to meet some girls I'm supposed to marry, except that I can't while I'm like this..."

"Oh dear," Kasumi responded softly. "I do believe that is actually the case, Ranma-san."

"Oh," Ranma responded flatly. "I see." And then the eyes of the rather large mouse rolled back in his head as he tried to process the incongruous information, and he fainted.

O O O

A short while later, after calming down a panicked Genma (who had become frantic over finding Ranma's unconscious upon his own recovery) and then getting the whole story from him, Soun had taken him out to the Dojo, where he could provide his old friend with a harder proof of comfort without having to bother his daughters with the impending inebriation of the two men. Not that they hadn't had to deal with either him or some of his friends after they had gotten a little too celebratory before, but those had been happy occasions which lead to happy, if somewhat intoxicated behavior.

Genma was far from happy, and would not be fit company for anyone, sober or drunk, so it was off to the Dojo, where anything that got broken could be easily fixed. Besides, with everything that was going wrong, Soun decided that he could use a few stiff drinks himself…

O O O

Back in the family room, the three Tendo sisters sat around the table looking at their unusual guest, who was currently curled up on some blankets set in a wicker basket that Kasumi had dug out of storage. She was still wearing the formal kimono that she had on before while Nabiki stayed in the somewhat outrageous outfit that had been painted on her by the magical water effects that preceded Ranma's appearance. Akane, on the other hand...

"Akane, you might want to change into a different outfit." Kasumi pointed out helpfully. "I believe part of your kimono got caught in Nabiki's magical girl transformation."

"Yeah, Akane, you're kind of showing... Wait. Magical Girl Transformation?" Nabiki cocked an eyebrow at Kasumi as Akane 'eeped' and ran to her room to change. "Get real, Kasumi. Magical girls are just products of fiction. The stuff of anime and bedtime stories, or bizarre rumors that conspiracy theorists and other oddballs pass around from time to time. They aren't anymore real than those sentai teams that Akane is into."

"What else would you call it?" Kasumi asked. "Between the water effects and the fact that your hair is blue and your eyes turned green, I do believe that it is a safe call to make, all things considered." Looking over her sister's outfit, she made a further observation. "Although, now that you mention it, your costume does sort of fit more into the sentai theme instead."

Nabiki blinked and suddenly wished that she had a mirror handy to examine herself with. She was somewhat surprised when water flowed out of the sapphire in the silver and steel fittings on the back of her right hand, forming into a flat plane with a somewhat fancy border and handle, which suddenly froze solid. And then fell to the floor, shattering into a hundred or so shards of ice.

"Really, Nabiki," Kasumi chided gently. "If you are going to use your magical girl powers to make things like a hand mirror, you should be ready to catch them before they break."

"I'll try to keep that in mind," Nabiki responded numbly, stunned at what had just occurred.

O O O

Far away, in a certain village in China, near Jusenkyo...

"Great Grandmother! Will you let me go after the fat panda that stole my Guardian Stone _now_? It has been two whole months!" Shampoo whined, only to get bopped on the head by Cologne.

"Shampoo! How many times do I have to tell you that Ranma's Guardian Stone belongs to nobody but Ranma!"

"But I could use it! Doesn't that mean that _I've_ been chosen as a magical warrior? Doesn't that make Ranma _my_ guardian beast?"

"Shampoo, while being able to bring Ranma forth from his Guardian Stone is a sign that you have potential as a magical warrior, the fact remains that were Ranma truly yours, his father would not have been able to take him from you. Some other woman will become Ranma's chosen warrior."

"But _who_, Great Grandmother?" Shampoo whined. "What _outsider_ woman can fight better than the Nichieju? Surely, if there were one, our warriors would have found her by now!"

Cologne sighed, having had this argument with her great granddaughter many times before, especially over the past couple of moths. "There are other types of strength than strength of arms or strength in martial arts, Shampoo. Intellectual, tactical, and spiritual, among others I could name. Besides, your elemental affinity with Earth is but one of what may be six or eight elemental aspects that Ranma can potentially support, so Ranma is most likely charged with being the Guardian Beast of a group of Magical Warriors. Not, as you would like to believe, just one."

Cologne raised her hand to cut off any further protest. "But enough about this. The other candidates from the village have had their two months to track down and attempt to retrieve Ranma's Guardian Stone. The council and I agree that this can only mean that Ranma is destined to serve his duty as a Guardian Beast wherever it is that his father is taking him."

The Nichieju Elder closed her eyes for a moment as she continued. "Given that you have already activated Ranma's Guardian Stone and have been revealed to have an elemental affinity as an Earth Warrior, you should have no particular difficulties in tracking down Ranma's sapphire Token. With that in mind, we have finally agreed that you may go after Ranma and find out... Shampoo?" Cologne addressed the now empty air, noting that the door to her home was only now just slamming shut.

After a few moments of contemplation, Cologne began to grumble to herself with half-lidded eyes. "Oh my. I do believe that she has jumped to an inconvenient conclusion." Sighing heavily, she gathered herself and made her way outside. "I had better warn the council of my upcoming prolonged absence."

O O O

Ranma woke to find himself curled up in a wicker basket padded with some nice soft blankets. While a nice surprise in and of itself, it was less remarkable than the fact that he actually literally woke up. Shampoo never bothered to leave him out of his token long enough to get any regular sleep. Not that he really needed any as long as he was in the sapphire disc, as the two states were similar from his point of view; however, in the physical world he could sleep and wake up on his own.

He hadn't realized how much he had missed little things like that. Granted, he hadn't been given much time to miss little things like that, what with Shampoo keeping him in his token most of the time, only bringing him out to show him off to her fellow villagers or at the requests of the Elders. Still, Shampoo was one of his charges now. As much as he may have resented the way she treated him, he was now a Guardian Beast and he knew that it was his duty to serve a magical champion.

Much to his embarrassment, he felt a tremendous amount of relief to find out that his "chosen" warrior didn't have to be the first one who activated his token. It might not even have to be the one his father had just found for him either, but he'd at least give the new girl a chance.

Shaking his head to clear it, the oversized blue kangaroo rat sat up and looked up at his latest charge.

O O O

Kasumi and Akane were looking on in awe as their sister experimented with what Kasumi had dubbed as her "Magical Girl Powers". Nabiki had formed a new ice mirror, a standing one large enough for all three sisters to be shown together this time. Elegant ice sculptures graced the family room here and there, along with the occasional weapon made entirely of ice. At the moment though, Nabiki was poking her hands into a large sphere of water she had called up, concentrating on keeping it floating like a bubble in the air while boiling the inside.

"Wow!" a high pitched voice exclaimed from the basket on the table. "You sure catch on fast! All Shampoo's done so far is move rocks and shake the ground a bit."

"_Eeeep!_" Nabiki's surprise manifested itself not in scalded hands, but instead with the sudden solidification of the boiling ball of water into a frozen globe of ice. A rather heavy globe at that, as Nabiki found out when it dragged her to the floor.

"Nabiki!" Akane cried out as she dove to intercept the ball lest it shatter and damage her sister's hands.

"Oh my!" Kasumi moved to wrap a towel around her sister's forearms and was about to get up to call for emergency services when she noticed something truly bizarre. "Oh!"

"**My hands**!" Nabiki screamed. "**What happened to my hands**?"

For when Kasumi began wrapping up her forearms and the ball, the thin layer of frost had been brushed away, revealing crystal clear ice and nothing else, save for a solitary sapphire disc suspended in the ice about where the back of Nabiki's right hand should be.

O O O

Soun poured himself another bowl of sake, and pondered if he should explain to the girls just _why_ it was so important for the Tendo and Saotome lines to be joined.

With what had just happened to Nabiki, it was past time to explain to the girls what the actual motivation behind the arranged marriage had been. Granted, the purpose had already been fulfilled, though not from the expected results of whatever progeny Ranma produced with one of his daughters. However, Nabiki's costume looked nothing like _any_ of those belonging to the four fading devil hunter lines leading into this union!

If only he had a son…

In his experience, the more dangerous the expected opposition of a devil hunter line was, the more revealing the starting outfits worn by the female members were. Males, at least, tended to get more armor and weapons instead. And since Nabiki's costume appeared to practically be body paint...

Soun Tendo, eighth generation devil hunter (retired), bitterly reflected on the painful truth of the old adage, "_Be careful what you wish for, for you may just get it_."

And then the thought faded as inebriation settled in…

O O O

"Calm down!" the high pitched voice commanded, drawing attention to itself. The three Tendo sisters looked over at the giant azure kangaroo rat, at which point Ranma continued. "Now, are you in any pain?"

"No," Nabiki considered. "I don't even feel cold or numb. Just weird."

"Okay then. I want you to just relax and think about having normal hands again. Can you do that for me?" Ranma asked.

"I think I can manage that..." Nabiki said, as much to assure herself as to answer the blue fuzzball.

"Your element is water, in all its forms," Ranma stated clearly as the girl's hands gradually became visible once more. "Just remember, your elemental powers can never directly hurt you, even by accident. That iceball is yours. Tell it to let you go."

Nabiki thought about it. And, as easy as that, the globe of ice poofed into a cloud of snow, releasing her hands. "Um... Thanks. I really should have kept a level head just then. Might have saved myself some trouble."

"Hey, no problem," Ranma chided. "For someone who just got magical powers, I think you've adapted rather quickly! You should be proud of yourself!"

"And how many Magical Girls have turned their own hands into ice, hmm?" Nabiki asked, cocking an eyebrow at the fuzzy blue kangaroo rat.

"Beats me," Ranma admitted off handedly. "I've only encountered two so far, and both of those were because they had an elemental affinity of some sort and had managed to activate my token."

"I feel so assured," Nabiki responded dryly, leveling a flat gaze at her magical mascot.

"So any girl could become a magical girl as long as she can activate that little disc?" Akane asked.

"Sort of," Ranma nodded. "I can only support so many elements at one time, and Earth and Water are already taken, so anyone else affiliated with either of them is out of luck."

"Nabiki?" Akane turned to her sister, eyes pleading for permission.

"I don't know…" Nabiki dissembled, leery of what her temperamental sister might do with a power-up.

"Please?" Akane's eyes became even more soulful, and she started quivering her lower lip as she clasped her hands together under her chin.

Nabiki just looked at her younger sister with a half-lidded expression and said, "You've _got_ to be kidding me…"

Ranma, on the other hand, proved to be a much softer touch. "Aw, c'mon… What harm could it do?"

"The mind boggles."

"Nabiki!" Akane huffed.

"That really wasn't very nice, Nabiki," Kasumi pointed out, as she placed a hand on Akane's shoulder, trying to placate her youngest sister.

"You'd probably end up with the powers of a rock anyway." Nabiki jibed, ignoring Kasumi's mild scolding. "You're head's just about as…"

"Finish that sentence, dear sister, and I'll show you who's got the thickest head!"

"See? Resorting to violence already!" Nabiki chided sardonically.

"Argh! Alright then! How about if I promise to be responsible?"

Nabiki thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Fair enough, I suppose. Just so long as you promise."

Akane waited expectantly.

And then waited some more.

And then her left eye started twitching. "Well!"

"You know me better than that, little sister. No promise, no deal."

"Argh… All right. You win, Nabiki." Akane groused in frustration, not being able to get

her sister to just give her something for nothing. Collecting herself, the youngest Tendo bowed briefly to Nabiki and made her pledge. "I, Akane Tendo, do solemnly swear to use whatever powers I get from the magic rock with all due responsibility."

"Very good, Akane!" Kasumi smiled brightly at her youngest sister, giving her a quick, reassuring hug.

"Okay then," Nabiki nodded again.

"Was that really necessary?" Ranma asked.

"Yes," Nabiki replied, at roughly the same time as Akane's own answer of "No!"

"Okay then…" the fussy blue rodent tilted his head in confusion.

"Just get on with it, Nabiki."

"Fine, have it your way." Nabiki extended her right hand...

Akane reached out to touch the gem. As soon as her fingertips touched the sapphire, great gouts of flame rushed out of it, washing over Akane and Kasumi, lifting the youngest Tendo into the air.

Fire raged in the family room of the Tendo home, a blazing column of flame that consumed the clothes from Akane's floating form in an instant. Along with the table, part of the floor and ceiling, and most of Kasumi's kimono.

Kasumi was apparently uninjured, Nabiki noted, although she wasn't sure whether that was because Akane's fire couldn't hurt her sisters, or because Kasumi was out in the yard, having been carried there by a now eight foot long (not counting the tufted tail), giant sabertooth kangaroo rat with blue fur.

Nabiki's own sensation was that of boiling. Not being boiled, or broiled, or even burned but literally boiling. From what she could see of herself, her body was now boiling water, somehow maintaining a human shape, with a sapphire suspended on the back of her right hand. Not uncomfortable, really; in fact, it was sort of warm and ticklish.

Nabiki cast her mind from the new sensation and back towards the raging inferno that was her sister. "AKANE! STOP!" Abruptly, most of the flames vanished, leaving Akane to drop suddenly through the hole in the floor before Nabiki could catch her.

"Eep!" Akane landed awkwardly but unharmed on the somewhat charred ground below the Tendo house. Sitting up, she noted that she now had her own Magical Girl costume. It was very similar to Nabiki's, being what appeared to be biker shorts and a sleeveless halter that may as well have been painted on, with complimenting boots and gloves. Only in shades of orange with red, brass and copper trim, and the kanji in the inverted triangle on the shorts was for fire.

Nabiki swiftly sent out dense sprays of water to put out the remaining flames left in the room, noting that she automatically reverted from her watery state once it was safe to do so. That it took her costume a moment or two longer to reappear was deemed a curiosity, but irrelevant at the moment due to other concerns.

"Cool!" Akane chirped happily, noting that there was even an unoccupied fitting in the brass plate on the back of her right hand.

"I suppose so," Nabiki remarked sarcastically as she put out the remaining fires in the family room. "I mean, you _only_ tried to burn our home to the ground. I guess that could be _cool._"

Akane looked around, noting to her chagrin the amount of damage her transformation had caused. Then she noticed Kasumi in the back yard, who was mostly naked and hanging tightly to the chest of the very large, very shaggy, and very dangerous looking gorilla-armed saber-toothed rodent...

O O O

Ranma, for his part, was starting to feel somewhat embarrassed. Mostly due to the state of Kasumi's attire (or rather, her current lack of same), but partly for not considering the possible side effects of the various elemental transformations. Granted, he had no way of knowing what Akane's elemental affiliation would have been ahead of time, nor had he actually seen Nabiki's transformation, or even Shampoo's for that matter. On one level, he was dead certain that none of the transformations were supposed to be that dangerous and out of control, but on another level he couldn't say why he was so sure that this was not normally the case.

Taking care not to look directly at the eldest Tendo sister's mostly bare body, Ranma tried to set Kasumi down carefully.

Except that Kasumi was having none of that! She continued to cling tightly to this large, furry (and not in the least bit on fire) guardian that had rescued her from being burned alive by her youngest sister. She had felt the heat of Akane's fire, painfully hot as her own kimono was rendered into ashes nearly instantaneously. A fate that Kasumi was sure to be her own until this wonderful beast grabbed her, taking the pain away and removing her from danger.

Kasumi began sobbing into Ranma's shaggy azure fur out of a feeling of shock and intense relief.

O O O

"What are you doing to my sister?" Akane yelled at Ranma, amber eyes glowing with anger and long red hair swaying violently side to side as she approached the monster in her back yard. She'd take care of this youma and then...

Being grabbed by her shoulder from behind, spun around, and slapped by Nabiki was not part of Akane's planned sequence of events.

"Akane! Calm down right now! This very instant!" Nabiki commanded angrily.

"But..."

"I mean it! Ranma is not harming Kasumi at all! In fact, he got her the hell OUT of danger! Danger YOU put her in!" Nabiki pointed out, her voice practically dripping with venom.

"But, Nabiki... I only..." Akane tried to explain tearfully.

"But nothing, Akane! You nearly burn down the house, incinerate your own sisters, and now..."

"Enough!" Ranma interrupted Nabiki's angry tirade. "It was an accident. None of the transformations are supposed to cause this much incidental damage. Not even fire, not that I had any idea what her elemental affinity was going to be. This was just a stupid, scary accident, and nobody was actually hurt, so enough already!"

Nabiki shook her head, forcing herself to calm down and regain her own composure. Ranma was right, and she could see that she had been overreacting in much the same way that Akane had, although at a different target. "I'm sorry, Akane."

"Yeah..." Akane responded sheepishly. "Me too." Getting a better look at the scant remains of Kasumi's attire, she exclaimed, "Oh! Kasumi! I'm so sorry! I ruined your best kimono! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Kasumi began to calm down, not that she was letting go of the giant plush toy that had saved her, and sniffled a couple of times before responding to her sister's attention. "I'll... I'll be all right, Akane. I just had a bad scare. I'll be fine."

"Um..." Ranma started in halting embarrassment. "Can I put you down now?"

"…" Kasumi buried her face in the azure fur covering Ranma's chest.

"Well?" Ranma asked again, plaintively. Or as plaintively as an eight foot tall blue furred saber-toothed kangaroo rat with the arms of a gorilla could.

"No."

Ranma would have joined Akane and Nabiki in their collective face-fault had it not meant possibly injuring Kasumi in the process.

O O O

Elsewhere in Nerima, five boys wearing animal masks had once again roughed up one of their favorite victims not too long ago. Hikaru Gosunkugi was angry, depressed, and, well... mostly depressed really. It wasn't like anger ever did him much good. When it came to classic fight-or-flight response, his adrenal system was every bit as pathetic as the rest of him, failing him when he needed it the most.

What he needed was a protector, someone strong, who was able to strike fear in others, and could back it up. And yet at the same time be caring and gentle. This was part of the reason he had fixated on Akane, who was normally such a sweet person, and yet was able to bull her way through thirty or forty boys at the start of every school day for the past month. Not that he thought about it in such an analytical fashion. He just felt a longing, nearly instinctive, need for Akane.

Now if only he could get up the courage to actually talk to her! Without thinking, Gosunkugi lashed out and punched a wall out of sheer frustration.

"Ow!" The frail boy examined his bloody knuckles and winced. His mother wasn't going to be too happy about this, and he wasn't too sure how his father would take it either. Or if he would even care about what happened to his son for that matter. What if it got infected?

Gosunkugi decided to rush the rest of the way home so he could get some antiseptic.

Which was fortunate for him because he missed the arrival of a gang of street toughs who would have been angry about how his bloody knuckles had ruined their stylized occult tag.

Unfortunately, for the wannabe gangbangers, they had gotten to their territory just in time to witness an arrival of another sort.

R'hul casually examined the pack of feral humans that had attempted to attack it, apparently out of some territorial urge. Not that the fight had lasted long, as they had proved to be young, undisciplined, and lacking in both will and power. At the moment it had them all paralyzed with fear.

Pathetic, really, because it wasn't even capable of projecting emotional attacks.

Still, its cursory inspection was giving it some clues as to why they might have retreated into the dark, gibbering recesses of their souls.

R'hul had two arms, two legs, a head with two eyes, all roughly where they should be for a human and certainly close enough to pass for human in a dark alley in the middle of the night.

However, as it was still early evening, there was still far too much light to effectively hide its less human features, like the sharp talons on its hands, and tentacles on its face. Many tentacles. Way too many tentacles, where the nose and mouth should be.

Tentacles that R'hul now extended from its 'beard' toward the unfortunate gang of boys.

R'hul had need of them.

**END CHAPTER ONE**

O O O

**OMAKE THEATER I PRESENTS: **_Pest Control..._

Curious, Nabiki's grip on the sapphire lens relaxed as she prepared to switch it to her left hand so she could see if it fit into the fixture. However, it popped out of her hand and flew into the setting on its own. Nabiki settled gently to the floor as gravity once again established it's hold on her, and one final thing came out of the lens and settled on the floor next to her.

It was small, about the size of a cat or rabbit, covered in blue fur, and looked kind of like a kangaroo rat.

"AHHHHH!" Akane screamed, "It's a rat! Kill it!" Which she promptly attempted to do with the table!

SPLAT!

"..." Soun was flabbergasted...

"..." Kasumi was speechless...

"..." Genma was shocked...

"Right," Nabiki muttered, "That's the fifth blue mouse-type we've gone through. Casting said that we wouldn't be getting another one after this until Akane had some therapy. Who's stupid idea was it to put her through the Nezumi-Ken anyway?"

"Why is everyone looking at me?" Genma asked nervously...

O O O

**OMAKE THEATER II PRESENTS: **_Hidden costs_

Akane reached out to touch the gem...

**BEEP** "Please deposit two game tokens" **BEEP**

"Darn!" Akane muttered. "I knew I shouldn't have used them all up playing Sailor Io in all of those crossovers!"


	2. Chapter 2

_**MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA: BETA EDITION**_

**MGR: Director's Cut**

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Golden Arms - additional co-writing credit for this chapter! J

Lord Talon

And… some guy named Steve.

LAST EDITED:

8/21/2010 (costume description changed to become more in line with current conception)

9/02/2010 (adjusted some plot points and added some details here and there)

DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanfics, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even _gasp_ American comic books!).

TAGS: Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse

If you aren't worried yet, maybe _I_ should be worried instead…

**CHAPTER TWO:**

R'hul now had minions, in the form of seven recently possessed feral humans. As it had surmised, these were young post adolescents, males at that, who were attempting to establish a 'territory' of their own. Part of which entailed painting 'tags' in various locations they wanted to claim. R'hul found this habit fortuitous, all the more so due to the lucky circumstance of their stumbling onto a viable occult symbol which they had already diligently spread here and there throughout the local human community.

That sort of thing really cut down on the pressure R'hul was under to establish a beachhead. No time needed to be wasted imprinting a suitable symbol into his minions' feeble minds. Instead, he could simply tweak their own natural impulses and they would be compelled to leave their 'tag' in discrete locations as they went through the motions of their day to day lives.

But first, R'hul thought that it should look for at least temporary lodgings to hide out in, and perhaps begin looking for a place to set up a long term base of operations...

O O O

"I give up!" Nabiki sighed, slumping to the floor in defeat. She narrowed her eyes at Kasumi, who was still latched onto Ranma's huge form, unwilling to even listen to anyone that tried to get her to relinquish her grip on the furry guardian. "Akane, why don't you see if our fathers are still sober. I doubt they even noticed anything from the Dojo."

"Right. But I'm leaving them there if they can't move on their own." Akane wasn't looking forward to facing her father after causing so much damage to the house, but she figured that Nabiki had a point in getting the histrionics over with.

"That's fine," Nabiki agreed. "In the meantime, I'll try to get Kasumi up to her room so she can get dressed." After all, even though they were in their own back yard, which was surrounded by a large wall for the sake of privacy and security, she doubted very much that leaving Ranma outside in his current economy-plus sized savage saber-toothed kangaroo gorilla-rat form was a good idea.

The thought that her older sister might not want to be outside wearing nothing but a few tattered strips of charred cloth that didn't really do anything to preserve her modesty never really entered her head. Or Akane's for that matter.

"Lots of luck, Nabiki," Akane commented as she turned to head through the house towards the Dojo. "I don't think she wants to give up her giant cuddle-toy." As she left the family room and passed the kitchen, she muttered to herself. "Freaking huge, scary looking cuddle-toy, as big as a car..."

O O O

Kasumi ran her fingers through Ranma's soft, fluffy fur as he carried her up to the second floor. The wooden stairs creaked under his weight as he followed Nabiki towards Kasumi's room. The oldest girl supposed she'd have to finally let go of her protector. A shame, that.

While in the arms of the guardian beast, she felt safe and secure, protected from the pain and worries of the world. She could be a little girl again, where cute, little, cuddly dolls kept the closet monsters at bay. When strong, caring embraces meant that her parents loved her and all problems could disappear with a hug.

At the moment, Kasumi didn't need to be strong or responsible. Snuggled in his azure fur, she could just be the child she was before her Mother died. She wanted that feeling to go on forever… but Kasumi knew deep down that it couldn't. She would have to let go of her protector.

To grow up again.

Still, perhaps she could get some material and make some plushies. She'd have to see if Ranma would be willing to model for her.

Kasumi was disappointed; they reached her room all too soon. She sighed, but let Ranma set her down on her bed, at which time he reverted into his smaller state without the oversized canines. He seemed rather surprised at that, especially as he contracted towards his former center of mass rather than staying on the floor as he shrank down.

Eye's twinkling and full of mischief, Kasumi grabbed the large blue kangaroo rat right out of the air before he could fall too far and cuddled him!

Nabiki's hair toinged out of place, partly from the sight of her elder sister's behavior (but mostly due to her sister's unexpected speed and accuracy), causing Kasumi to giggle as she hugged Ranma against her bare bosom. Ranma, for his part, squirmed for a moment, then realized what he was struggling against.

"Is Ranma alright?" Nabiki asked as the blue rodent fell limp in her sister's arms.

"Oh my!" Kasumi exclaimed, finally holding Ranma's dazed form away from her exposed breasts.

"Way to go, Sis," Nabiki chided as she poked Ranma. "I think you broke him."

O O O

Akane made her way along the covered walkway that connected the house to the dojo in the north yard. All in all, she was actually feeling pretty happy, despite having ruined Kasumi's best kimono and leaving a large burnt out hole in the house. The kimono was replaceable, and Daddy could always have one or more of his students fix the hole in the family room floor.

After all, they never complained when Daddy had them fix damage to the dojo, right?

Okay, so unlike those times, she was the one to have caused the damage. Considering that her Daddy might make her help out this time, the redheaded girl just shrugged. How hard could it be?

O O O

At the onset of evening, there was a bustle of activity at the Tendo Household. Akane and Nabiki brought in a couple of low folding tables from the storage shed and set them up as a temporary dinner table. Kasumi moved some of the smaller ice sculptures out into the yard, and clapped her hands in delighted wonder when Ranma had the larger ones move themselves (after he caught on to what she was doing). Soun mostly stared in shock at the damage done to the family room and wondered if anyone would notice if he simply wandered back into the dojo and drank himself into a stupor (or at least more of a stupor anyway, as the room was already swimming).

Genma brought in supper for everyone as they sat where they could. Even though it was only simple fare, he figured that Kasumi really needed a break from her duties after her scare, so he took it upon himself to do some camp cooking in their yard. While neither he nor Soun had time to get drunk…

Well, he hadn't had time to get drunk anyway. His friend was quite wasted, though.

In any event, they had experienced a strong mutual catharsis before Akane had come to fetch them, revealing that she too had drawn another of Ranma's elements. Genma pondered over the odd fact that two of his friend's daughters had been empowered, when only one girl in an entire village of hopeful Amazons had managed to do so. It had to mean something…

As Nabiki passed around bowls, plates, chopsticks, and serving utensils, Genma was pleased to note that Ranma was receiving a set of his own. Good, at least one of the Tendo daughters was treating Ranma as a person. He felt better for having decided to take his son's token from Shampoo.

As everyone settled around the table to eat, Kasumi looked at her sisters and blushed, only now feeling a little embarrassed about how she was behaving earlier. The fact that Akane was also wearing another practically painted-on costume like the one Nabiki had on, if of different colors, wasn't really helping her sense of propriety either. She could sort of understand Nabiki being brazen enough to wear such a thing, but to see Akane doing so without even a hint of self-consciousness was highly unusual.

Especially as the incidental jiggling and swaying that accompanied nearly every move made by either of them made it abundantly clear that the skin-hugging halter tops didn't provide any restriction whatsoever. If it weren't for the fact that the costumes didn't look like skin, she'd swear that they _really were_ nothing but body paint…

Nabiki filled her Daddy's bowls for him, as he didn't look all that steady at the moment, while Akane unconsciously began taking about twice as much as she usually ate. Neither of which were characteristic of the two girls, leaving their elder sister wondering just what was going on.

"Are you okay, Kasumi?" Nabiki asked her flustered sister.

"Ah…" Kasumi hesitated momentarily as she fidgeted with her chopsticks. "I'm fine. Just a little… unsettled is all." Averting her eyes from Nabiki, she idly noted that at least with Akane's less developed bosom, the random movements were far less pronounced.

"Did you want something, Kasumi?" Akane asked, noticing the attention.

Kasumi almost choked on a mouthful of roast vegetables before responding. "Er… um… No, Akane, I'm fine, really!"

"You sure?" Ranma asked, drawing Kasumi's attention to the large blue rodent sitting on the table.

Relieved to at last have a safe place to look at, the eldest Tendo sister smiled. "Yes, Ranma, I'm sure. It's just that the events of the day are catching up to me."

"If you say so," the tiny guardian beast conceded. "You were beginning to look a little red for a moment there. I wouldn't want you to get sick or nothing."

"I'm fine, really," Kasumi assured her new pet - guest! She meant guest! "Thank you for your concern." By this time, she was hoping that the conversation would end, or at least change focus. Salvation came as Genma finished his meal and tapped the side of his bowl with his chopsticks for attention.

"Tendo," Genma started, "with two of your daughters able to activate Ranma's token, I feel that my son's place is indeed here, Tendo."

"Yesh, well... Be tha' az it may, Shaotome, how'll we ev'r join ur two fam'lies?" Soun asked, giving the hole in the floor a long, drawn-out, bleary stare. The fact that Akane looked at him sheepishly whenever he did so was not lost on him, but from what he had been told the whole incident was an accident. Perhaps it would be best to arrange for further potential accidents to occur outside, or even away from the property all together. Not that he wanted to put either his best friend or his son out.

"For the time being, Ranma will stay here and serve as your daughters' guardian. It cannot be coincidence that two of them can be empowered by him," Genma pointed out. "I will remain a few days while Ranma is settling down. In part to help repair the damage caused by this evening's accident, but mostly to go over some ideas with my son on how best to train your daughters in their new abilities."

"You're leaving, Pop?" Ranma asked, setting down a shrimp and vegetable kabob (he couldn't use chopsticks normally at his size, so he'd been spearing everything but the rice instead - that he had to resort to simple picking up in his paws). The first food he had eaten since becoming a guardian beast at that. Adding to the novelty was the complete and utter lack of attempts on his fathers part to steal his food. Although with the speed Akane was shoveling things into her mouth, he figured that it was only a matter of time before the energetic girl began pilfering from other people at the table.

"I'm going on a journey to attempt to find a way for you to be restored to your human form, my son." Genma explained, voice heavy with conviction. "You may have been called to serve a higher duty, but I fail to see why the kami have decided that you must do so as a guardian beast. I want you to be restored to yourself as soon as possible, so I am planning a pilgrimage to every shrine and temple I can find to both pray for your restoration and to try to find out what must be done for it to happen."

"Pop..." Ranma didn't know what to say. This was a side of his father he hardly ever saw while growing up.

"I'll try to visit as often as I can, Ranma, so please do not feel that I'm abandoning you in any way," Genma went on. "You have been called to duty, my son, and I will not stand in the way of your being able to carry it out. Instead, I plan to discover what it takes to speed you surely through whatever destiny the kami have laid out for you so that you can get your own life back in as short a time as possible."

"Pop..." Ranma tried to interject, only to be interrupted as his father chose to go on.

"Please, Ranma... My son," Genma implored with heavy solemnity. "Please forgive a father for his foibles. Please forgive me for taking your life away from you and causing this heavy burden to be placed on your shoulders. I know I haven't always been the best father I could have been. I have often been shortsighted, and too many times have I let petty greed put you or your honor at risk. I need to do this, my son. I need to try as hard as I can to restore you to yourself, so that I may in some small way atone for my actions that led to this situation."

Everyone looked at Genma and thought deeply on what the elder Saotome had said.

Nabiki was reminded that there was a purpose behind her transformation. That there was a danger that she had been called on to help defeat. One that could prove to be deadly serious. She wondered why she only felt a little trepidation at the prospect of facing youma and other monsters.

Akane came to realize that becoming a Magical Girl wasn't all fun, games, and beating up the youma of the week. There were costs to this business she had so carelessly entered. The Saotomes were paying a very big cost indeed, and one that neither had ever sought to pay. Costs that she herself had paid in the form of accidental damage to her home. Akane resolved to listen to her new sensei, and to try to master her seemingly wild and undisciplined powers.

Kasumi decided to make Ranma's stay in their home as comfortable as possible. Maybe later she'd even gather the nerve to touch his token as well, but it was much too soon for that. She didn't really feel ready to answer any such call to duty just yet, Magical Girl or otherwise. And certainly not if she had to wear one of those so-called costumes.

Soun was weeping openly at the tragedy of it all, but had yet to break out into a sorrowful tirade of his own. How long that would last was anybody's guess.

Ranma stared intently at his father, appearing to think deeply on all that Genma had just said. After a moment, the large blue kangaroo rat seemed to come to a conclusion.

"All right. Who are you and what did you do with my Pop?"

Facefaults abound! Moments later, Genma sat back up and yelled, "Ranma! How dare you treat a solemn moment like this so trivially!"

"Okay! Okay! Sheesh! Lighten up, Pop!" Ranma ceded sheepishly. "I forgive you already!"

O O O

R'hul examined its current domicile, the home of the feral humans' pack alpha. Surprisingly the young adult had still been living with his parents, but they were easily taken care of. Nothing permanent yet, as they might still be needed to maintain his cover. Just a couple of temporary transformations to keep them from causing problems over the short term.

Both were now boneless, fleshy mannequins. They couldn't do anything else, though they were able to remember what they were, and thus quite able to radiate satisfactory amounts of terror. The shocked expressions frozen on their faces at the moment of transformation were priceless. It helped R'hul appreciate the fresh sense of personal horror emanating from both them and their progeny.

"Remove their coverings and place them in their nesting chamber," the c'thulhoid commanded the terrified youth.

Tatsuo did as his horrifying master bid, not really having a choice in the matter as his will had been subsumed by that of the youma. Stripping the clothes off of his now invertebrate parents, he tried to gather up their limp bodies.

"No," R'hul corrected, "Not them. Leave your parents where they are, and bring their coverings to their nesting chamber." The c'thulhoid would be going through their belongings later, when it was time to decide on a disguise, and it wanted all of the accessories in a common location.

Good help was so hard to find, R'hul sighed as the youngling scrambled to do his bidding. Ignoring the terrified minion, it casually picked up the fleshy dolls and set them on a set of marble counter tops it discovered in one of the chambers of its new hideout. Ignoring the thick red fluid that oozed out from an oddly squeezable bottle that one of them had been placed on, it inserted thin probing tentacles up their nostrils and into their brains, R'hul began to examine their memories and tried to make sense of their alien thought processes.

R'hul soon made some interesting discoveries. The humans of this new world had come to catalogue their darker natures, displaying their fears and perversions in visible records for all to see. Records that could be seen in illusory form, complete with movement and sound, by using a set of mystical devices called a television and a veesiar respectively. Truly an excellent guide for the connoisseur of the soul.

Deciding to forgo further interrogation for the moment, R'hul left the helpless nude adults to lie on the hard, cold countertops as it headed for the viewing chamber to try out these new relics. It chose to start with something from the father's collection, by the auspicious title of "The Amityville Horror," to be followed by "Alien" and then "Godzilla." Later, it might move on to the tastes of its minion and see what "Legend of the Overfiend" was about.

All in all, with its minions dutifully spreading their 'tag' hither and yon, R'hul decided to kick back and enjoy some quality leisure time for a bit before making any big moves. Vacation time was another thing that was hard to come by these days...

O O O

Nabiki sighed as she helped Kasumi set up the upstairs guestroom for herself, while Akane and their father set up the downstairs guest room for the Saotomes. In all the drama earlier, everyone had missed the small charred hole in her floor, directly above the family room.

"I'm really sorry about this," the blue haired girl stated softly as she spread out a futon on the floor.

"It's alright, Nabiki," Kasumi assured her sister as she gathered some sheets and a pillow from the closet. "You were just trying to stop the fire from spreading, and I'm sure Akane didn't really mean any harm. Mister Saotome said that he would be fixing the holes tomorrow."

"Well, that's good, at least," Nabiki admitted as the two girls arranged the bedding to the elder girl's liking. One thing was burning at her curiosity however.

"Kasumi?"

"Yes?"

"Why do we even _have_ ducky-and-bunny print sheets in the guest room?"

O O O

Tatsuo finished laying out his parent's clothes on their bed and left their room. He noted in relief that his master had apparently decided not to leave his parents lying on the floor after all. Hoping that they were okay, even if they were now all limp and spongy, he went to the kitchen to get something to eat. He really hadn't had anything to eat all day, and he was rather famished.

Entering the kitchen, the teenage gangbanger stopped in shock as he saw his parents draped over the kitchen counters, with thick red fluid dripping onto the floor from under his mother's torso.

R'hul, curious about the loud thump that interrupted its experiments with the odd mystic viewing implements, came over to investigate. Finding its lead minion collapsed on the floor outside the food preparation chamber, it wondered just what had frightening the youngling.

O O O

Nabiki decided that she had enough surprises for one day. After helping her older sister, the middle daughter made her way towards her room, fully intent on sleeping the weirdness off. Perhaps it would be a bad dream. She idly hoped it would be, taking one glove off and tossing it onto the room floor.

SPLASH

Nabiki's eyes widened. Painstakingly, her head turned around, looking in the direction of her thrown glove.

All she found was a puddle of water. No glove. No metal. Just water.

Curiously, she took the other glove off, the one with the fitting for Ranma's lens, and dropped it experimentally onto a dry spot on the floor. As soon as it left contact from her body, the material blurred into water, soaking the carpet without reserve, leaving the gem to bounce across the floor.

"Weird..." she said, crossing her arms.

She noted something else. Stroking her bare hands against her body, she could feel her bare skin against her breasts, as if she was naked and touching her body. Pulling her hands away, she noted again that the clothing seemed to be nothing more than body paint. The contours of her bosom were followed to the point that she could easily tell where her nipples were. On the other hand, the inverted triangle covering the crotch of her shorts did not follow the contour of her vagina, although the pale blue border trim and the kanji for water called attention to that area anyway.

Curious, Nabiki tucked a fingernail under the edge of the triangle, popping it off as a semi rigid piece that stayed solid even as it fell to the floor. While the area it had covered was now the same deep ocean blue that was the dominant color of her costume, it turned out that it did indeed follow that particular fold as perfectly as most of the rest of her outfit did. A quick look into her mirror even revealed a perfect wedgie she couldn't feel.

In fact, the only parts of her costume that weren't contour perfect other that the triangular cup were the toes and soles of her boots, which looked like they belonged to a set of running shoes. Oddly, they were also the only parts of her costume that she didn't automatically feel through with her sense of touch, feeling like she was actually wearing thick soled slippers instead of bare skin like everywhere else.

Pulling away the hem of her shorts, it was like latex paint, or the finest of silk. However, letting go, it clung to her hip without so much as a snap. It was like a part of her.

Stroking her fingers along her thigh, she observed that the sensation was akin to being naked, though obviously, she wasn't. However, it did nothing to dissuade the feelings of something more going on. If it wasn't exactly clothing she was wearing, then what was it?

Just then, she heard a frightened shriek next door.

"Akane?"

Nabiki was out her room and flinging open her little sister's door before she could think about it. Akane, topless, was dashing out the last small flames searing her carpet. The smell of burnt synthetics made the older sister a little nauseous.

"Found out about the costumes, too, huh?"

"Nabiki!" She looked relieved. "It was an accident, honest! I just took off my shirt, and FWOOM! It was trying to set everything on fire!"

"I know," Nabiki said, holding up a hand to calm her little sister. "I had a similar incident with my own clothing. Perhaps we should ask Ranma on how to power down for the night."

Akane's eyes lit up. "That's a great idea! I bet Sensei would know what to do!"

She shot out past her sister, who was mouthing the word, Sensei?, in bizarre wonderment. That was when she saw that Akane hadn't even bothered to put on another top. The girls were flying freely for all to see.

And she didn't seem to notice. Or care. Not that it really mattered to Nabiki, other than the fact that it seemed to be uncharacteristic of her prudish younger sister.

Shaking her head, Nabiki decided to follow Akane downstairs. She hoped Ranma had an answer for them. Otherwise, they might not have much of a house to live in before the night was over.

O O O

Ranma was out in the yard, trying to puzzle out a kata set for his new form. All of his proportions were different, from his stubby arms and long legs, to his compact body and proportionately oversized head. Not to mention the things that his long, tufted tail added to the equation.

And it would certainly help if he could figure out how he changed sizes before. While it probably wouldn't be prudent to get quite as large as he had before, he didn't really like being this small either.

His musings were cut short when the two younger Tendo sisters came out into the yard still wearing their color coded power sets.

"What's up, girls?"

"Akane and I were wondering how we were supposed to power down for the night," Nabiki replied, noting that Ranma seemed surprisingly unfazed by her sister's topless state, given his reaction to Kasumi's bare bosom earlier.

"Yeah, Sensei," Akane agreed. "I nearly set my room on fire trying to take my costume off," she admitted, blushing.

Ranma cocked his head to the side and examined the girls more closely. "Hmmm… I'll see what I can do."

After a few minutes, the large blue rodent said, "Okay, I think I got this." By which point Akane was fidgeting, bouncing up and down on her heels. Nabiki merely nodded, keeping half an eye on her unusually hyper sister.

"What you need to do is focus on your power," Ranma began. "Let me know when you can feel it, okay?"

"Yes, Sensei!" Akane chirped happily, actually settling down for a moment to concentrate.

"Got it," Nabiki replied. "Just give me a moment. This is like when you asked me to tell the ball of ice to let me go, right?"

"Exactly!" Ranma cheerfully confirmed.

"Aha!" Akane exclaimed triumphantly as her power suddenly flickered and then guttered out, leaving her not only topless, but nearly completely naked as well as the only thing remaining on her body was the inverted triangle with the kanji for fire on it. Not that she noticed right away.

"Right…" Nabiki cocked an eyebrow at her practically nude sister, and noticed that Ranma seemed to be stunned in shock. With a sigh, she quickly regained her focus and let her own power drain away. Her odd hair and eye coloration reverted to normal as her costume dispersed into a fine mist. Only without the triangular cup, as Nabiki now recalled that she had left it laying on her bedroom floor.

Moments later, her kimono reformed out of this same mist, only with make-up stains and a third arm from what was presumably the section of Akane's attire that had gotten absorbed during the transformation. Even her bra had acquired an extra cup, which would probably have been uncomfortable had any of it actually appeared on Nabiki. Which it hadn't.

Instead, Nabiki's original attire reformed as a scattered pile of clothes in roughly the area she was in, give or take the radius of a ten foot dome centered on the now normal girl, leaving her naked as well.

At this point, Ranma's eyes glazed over and it was clear that his higher cognitive functions had shut down, leaving him standing there on idle...

Akane acquired the most interesting full body flush, and she beat a hasty retreat into the house, racing up the stairs in hopes of getting to her room before anyone else saw her.

Nabiki's left eye twitched for a few moments before she too went into the house, albeit in a forced 'casual' pace as the elder sister attempted to retain some dignity as she returned to her own room. A little later Nabiki had come back, dressed in green pajamas. Picking up the still dazed guardian beast, she brought him into the house and gave Ranma to his father...

O O O

R'hul kicked back and sucked on a bottle of ketchup as its impromptu Godzilla marathon continued into the night. From the first one done in a monochromatic medium of black, white, and grey, through to the colorful smash-fests of the current day, R'hull was enjoying every moment of them all. Alien and its sequel, Aliens, had been enlightening and amusing. Enlightening in that humans had thought of something capable of scaring it on first sight, but amusing from that point on as the terror of the ever diminishing human casts mounted. The Amityville Horror had been nice too.

R'hul supposed there was nothing keeping it from starting in on its lead minion's anime collection. Well, other than sheer amusement over the boy's impatience to watch the hentai selection he had acquired without his parent's knowledge. More giant monster movies it was then!

O O O

Akane rose with the sun, stretching her arms wide as she sat up and yawned. Blinking a few times, she shook her head and tried to make sense of her early morning thoughts.

"Weird dream," Akane giggled. "Me and Nabiki part of a Bishojo Senshi team of magical girls! And those costumes!" She giggled some more at the dream-like memories of the previous day. She was positive that if it hadn't been a dream she would have died from embarrassment walking around in front of her family wearing something that fit like it was painted on, let alone a complete stranger. It had felt so liberating though, that she almost wished that she could wear something like that in real life if she could feel that way while doing it. "Wait till I tell Nabiki!"

And then her eyes grew wide as she noticed the burn mark on her floor from where she remembered tossing an orange halter top the night before. And then she noticed that she had apparently forgotten to put on any pajamas, as the only thing she was wearing was that weird stringless bikini brief that had been left behind after she dismissed her powers.

O O O

Nabiki slept on, quite comfortably snuggled in her bed, oblivious to the early morning world as it woke up around her. Ranma's sapphire token lay on her desk, where she had set it the night before, and her own discarded pajamas lay on the floor near a distinctive triangular cup…

O O O

Soun wandered out of the master bedroom briefly, if only to make his way to the kitchen for an icepack before retreating back to the dark silence of his room.

O O O

"I don't know, Pop," the largish blue furred kangaroo rat tilted his head to one side as he helped his father sort through the fire and water damaged things on the south veranda. "I know, please don't ask me how I know, I just do. Anyway, I know that what Akane had managed to do was trigger the quick and dirty version of her transformation. Fast, damn hard to interrupt, and completely destructive. It's meant for situations where she'd already be in combat or if she had been captured or restrained somehow. All of the elements have a transformation setting like that."

"So what seems to be the problem, Son?" Genma asked as he sorted some fire damaged decorations from the water damaged ones. "Just get Akane to use the other setting. Her transformation sequence should then be similar to those of Nabiki and Shampoo, only with fire instead of water or earth."

"Yeah, that would be the idea," Ranma agreed. "Unfortunately, I have no idea how she triggered that setting to begin with. I'll need to have the girls power up and down a few times and then try to compare notes or something."

"That would seem to make sense," Genma nodded. "I'd recommend getting them to pack several sets of old clothes that they don't wear anymore, and then finding some place secluded and just have them transform over and over again like a regular drill. Both ways, if they can figure it out. I take it from the three armed kimono that Nabiki doesn't have a complete handle on returning to normal yet?"

Ranma blushed at the memory of the two girls powering down for the first time. "You got that right, Pops. One moment, they're both standing there covered in squiggly lines and stuff wandering all over them, and the next: poof! It's all gone and Nabiki's clothes pop out of thin air everywhere but on Nabiki herself!"

"What stuff?" Genma asked, as he hadn't seen anything of the sort on any of the costumes the girls had.

"Weird symbols, letters, and numbers, mostly, with some charts and graphs," Ranma described. "A bunch of different languages too, I think…"

"Did it follow their costumes at all?"

"What costumes?"

Genma cocked an eyebrow. "You mean the writing is dense enough to obscure their costumes?"

Ranma snorted derisively. "No. I mean: What costumes? The only thing they were wearing anything under all that junk were those weird stringless bikini bottoms."

"Oh my!" Kasumi blushed, covering her mouth with her hands, drawing the attention of the two males to the girl who had just stepped out onto the porch.

"Alrighty then!" Ranma decided that a change of topic was in order. Now if only he could think of something...

O O O

Shampoo made good time during the night. As she had guessed, her Earth Warrior form was revitalized nearly continuously while in contact with the ground, which meant that she could cover vast distances in a relatively short amount of time simply because she didn't have to pause for rest breaks. She had tried jogging or running, but those paces caused her entire body to leave the ground for brief moments, allowing her to tire out if she kept them up over extended periods.

Oddly, the unrestricted bouncing of her generous bosom wasn't a consideration in her decision. And not just because of the 'tough it out' attitude adopted by the Amazons. While she was in her empowered state, Shampoo simply didn't experience any of the discomfort or pain normally associated with such lack of support. If she wanted too, she could literally jump vigorously for hours on end and never once be bothered by chest pain.

A fact that she used to great advantage to win an impromptu competition due to Braid's drunken dare about a week before the outsider male ran off with the gem which housed her guardian beast. Shampoo was sure that some of the other young warriors were _still_ sore due to that incident. Especially since many of her own generation of warriors were taking cues from elements of her own divinely provided battle-dress and were choosing emulate her outfit via body paints, along with scanty briefs, snug gloves, and practical boots.

The older generations took this in askance, stating that the dubious fashion statement would go away after either their first battle or once the chill of autumn really set in. In the meantime, Shampoo actually felt honored about the whole thing.

Shampoo's pack, which had been ready to go for several weeks now, was easily ten times as massive as she could have previously carried. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the additional weight was comprised of various stones. Nice, simple, and direct, being able to attack at range with flying rocks was quite fun, and presumably useful for staying out of reach of those demons that she'd rather not touch.

For a moment she reflected on the strange war garb she wore in her role as a Warrior of Earth, as well as the other changes inherent with her powered up state. The costume itself was colored in earth tones, with some turquoise highlights. Sturdy boots and gloves were reinforced with, of all things, jade and granite, and were surprisingly comfortable despite their rough texture and rigid appearance. The pants were short, ending halfway down her thighs, and the shirt was also a sleeveless, abbreviated affair that left her midriff bare to the point of exposing a generous amount of underboob (seriously, it ended just below her nipples - how her breasts never fell out of it whenever she moved was yet another sign of its magical nature). Both articles had raised trim and decorative designs that looked and felt like immovable stone but moved and flexed as easily as the rest of the material it was a part of, which differed from body paint only in that she could remove it like normal clothes.

Granted, it would turn to sand when it left contact with her, leaving her wearing only that odd cup covering her loin, but she just took that as even more proof of its mystic status. Shampoo's skin was currently a deep nut tan and her hair and eyes had both become a rich deep brown that most in the village likened to chocolate and one jealous warrior had called mud.

Once.

No one in the village had felt particularly inclined to make that mistake within the range of Shampoo's hearing again, although some took Genma's theft of his son's token shortly thereafter as a sign that the Earth Warrior had lost the favored Champion position.

Utter nonsense. Shampoo would show them all by finding Ranma and then leading whatever team of outsider women to victory over the coming demon invasion! The strength of the Earth Warrior was not to be taken lightly!

Emphasizing her thoughts, Shampoo hammered a tree with her fist as she passed by it. She heard a cracking sound behind her, followed by a huge shadow looming over her head menacingly. The young Amazon barely had time to get out of the way before the now-broken pine crashed to the ground.

Checking her bearings, the young Nichieju determined that the sapphire token that contained her errant guardian beast was still far to the east, towards the rising sun...

O O O

"So, where are we going again?" Nabiki asked her younger sister, who had taken the lead once they left the house.

"There's a gravel storage lot on the edge of Nerima that Public Works uses." Akane explained. "There shouldn't be anyone there on a Sunday, and there isn't much we could do to hurt gravel, is there?"

"That seems reasonable," Ranma agreed from where he was riding shotgun on Nabiki's shoulder. The elder girl nodded as well.

The two sisters continued walking, occasionally being greeted by someone that knew one or both of them. Both girls were dressed, as instructed by Ranma, in old clothes and were bringing along a few sets of replacements in small back packs, along with a bento Kasumi had prepared for each of them, and some extra money if they ran late and wanted to get something to eat on the way home. Most passersby assumed that the fuzzy blue creature on the one girl's shoulder was either a toy or an exotic pet. The rest didn't seem to know what to make of Ranma and thus either stared at him or ignored him completely.

"So, Ranma," Nabiki asked after they had walked a considerable distance, glad that she had decided to exercise to keep her figure. "Tell us about Shampoo. You said that she was able to draw Earth powers from your token?"

"There's really not that much to say," Ranma said. "She kept me in my token most of the time, so I didn't get to see her practice her powers other than on a few occasions."

"When can we expect to meet her?" Akane asked curiously, wondering what the only other team member so far was like.

"At the rate she's coming, I'd say in a few weeks at most, "the blue furred kangaroo rat responded. "She's been powered up since yesterday evening and seems to be recharging herself by staying in contact with the ground."

"So we can recharge ourselves with our elements?" Nabiki asked. "That's good to know."

"Somewhat," Ranma nodded. "I think there are limits, but I'm not sure what they are yet."

"What's the deal with our costumes, anyway?" Akane asked, deciding to broach a subject that had bothered her the previous night, after they had powered down.

"What costumes?"

"The ones we wear when we're powered up." Nabiki pointed out dryly, wondering if Ranma was just playing dumb or something.

"Pop mentioned those too, but I've never seen them."

"Wait..." Akane stopped walking briefly as the implication hit her, then she hurried to catch back up to her sister. "You mean to say that you see us in the nude when we're like that!"

"Well, sort of," Ranma shrugged. "There's a bunch of writing and charts and stuff covering your bodies when you're powered up. Wanders all over your bodies too, like spastic ants."

"They move?" Nabiki asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Like closing credits," Ranma explained, oblivious to how red both girls were turning. "Except that it goes every which way and crosses eachother, and some of it flies out around your bodies like bees or something."

"So the writing just covers up everything so you don't see our costumes then?" Akane asked, feeling relieved.

"No," Ranma sighed. "Look. I only just realized this morning that you guys don't see the same junk I see when you're powered up. To me, your power sets look like color coded writing, with graphs, charts, and pictures. I have no idea what your so-called costumes look like, because the only thing any of you wear anything under all that stuff is some sort of weird stringless bikini bottom."

"Then why don't you react to us the same way you do when you see us naked when we aren't powered up?" Nabiki asked as her little sister turned beet red again. Her own shock had worn off, allowing her to be amused with Akane's discomfort.

"It's hard to really focus on your bodies without going all cross-eyed trying to follow all that junk. It's easier to just look at your faces when you're like that, 'cause there's not as much of it in the way."

"Oh. I guess that's okay then," Akane admitted as her full body blush faded once again.

"I suppose you can't explain why we aren't bothered about our costumes when we're powered up then."

"Not a clue, sorry."

O O O

R'hul decided to take a break from the monster movie marathon and was currently examining itself in the bathroom mirror, pondering how best to disguise itself. Its build was already mostly male, although R'hul was actually genderless. It wasn't even very important, merely being an advanced scout picked from its crèche to poke around and get things started on this end. If it failed, another would be sent in its place easily enough.

Sighing, R'hul decided that it had better show some initiative and actually do something for the cause if it wanted to be advanced to the next level as something other than a snack for whatever general that ended up being assigned to conquer this world. Its minions had been spreading their tag, so perhaps it was time to send one along to activate one. Preferably one of the ones farther away from its current domicile.

With the impulse sent to a random minion, R'hul turned its attention fully towards properly transforming itself...

O O O

Genma approached the door with no small amount of trepidation in his heart, but his resolve remained strong and he knocked without hesitation. Hearing movement inside, Genma reminded himself that he was doing this for his son. For his family. To make up for the mistakes of his past. No matter the cost to himself, so long as his son was spared further injustice.

He had to do this for Ranma's sake. For his son, he'd have the courage to face the greatest of dangers. And he would brave them alone, bearing the full weight of responsibility so as to spare his son.

The door opened, revealing a woman with chestnut hair and familiar blue eyes.

"Genma?" Nodoka asked. "Is that you?"

"No-chan," Genma began, "I have much to tell you..."

O O O

"Okay, we're here!" Akane announced, as she lead Nabiki and Ranma into the gravel storage lot. It was fairly large, with a small building on one end, several large piles of gravel in various grades, and even a few hills of black asphalt. A simple chain-link fence surrounded the whole lot, but the gate consisted solely of a chain hanging across the driveway with a sign that said 'closed' suspended from the middle of it. There did not seem to be anyone there at the moment.

"Looks good. I don't see anyone else around either," Ranma observed.

"Like I said, it's usually empty on Sundays," Akane explained as she stepped over the chain and started through the yard. "Dad brought me here a couple of times. He said that the acoustics would break up anything short of screams, so no worry about disturbing anyone if we got too enthusiastic."

"Geeze, Akane," Nabiki commented. "If that was anyone but Dad, that would've sounded suspicious."

"I suppose so," Akane admitted reluctantly.

"So, Ranma," Nabiki redirected her attention as Akane lead them further into the lot amongst the gravel piles. "How many elements can you support? Just the Western four, or our traditional five? Or should that be the Chinese five, since you became a Guardian Beast there?"

Ranma thought for a moment before responding. "Eight, I think. Shampoo, Akane, and you have Earth, Fire, and Water already. The others are: Air, Wood, Metal, Light, and Dark. I'm pretty sure that that's it."

"That sounds like either an amalgamation of the various traditional sets, or a standard videogame RPG set."

"Videogame RPG?"

"You know, Role Playing Game. Only as a videogame instead of with pen and paper."

"Not a clue, sorry."

"Final Fantasy? Breath of Fire? Dragon Quest?"

"Nabiki, the only videogames I ever got to play were Pac-Man, Zaxxon, and Galaxian," Ranma explained. "Although I had gotten rather good at Martial Arts Pinball before Pop made me quit. He said that if I was getting so lazy as to let some blind boy beat me in a tournament, I could be doing other things to improve my hand-eye co-ordination. Too bad, though; the kid was a really cool customer, a regular pinball wizard! I'd have liked to challenge him again. Didn't seem to be all there though..."

Akane and Nabiki just stared at the largish azure rodent ...

O O O

Shin ran as hard as he could. The Master had sent him a mission: Activate one of the 'tags' he and the others had been spreading all over the place since yesterday. All in all, he'd much rather be doing something else. Something saner. Like walking into a police station and spitting on any cops he could find before throwing himself on their mercy. He was sure that his new boss was going to suck his brains out.

Or at the very least, shove one of those tentacles up his nose and go poking around in his head again. Shin knew that he did not want that to happen again. As it was, he was already doing several things he had no real desire to do, and rather strong reservations against. But he did them anyway, somehow compelled beyond all reason to obey R'hul's every whim.

Well, perhaps as long as he was useful, R'hul would go ahead and eat other people's brains instead. Looking on the bright side, such as it was, Shin mentally prepared himself for what he had to do.

Finally reaching a good spot, the street punk quickly clawed a random person's face, drawing blood. Ignoring the woman's screams, he smeared his bloody fingers on a tag placed on the back of a street sign. That done, Shin started to book it, lest whatever showed up decided that he'd make a nice snack...

O O O

Akane and Nabiki had both set down their backpacks so that they could try powering up for the first time in the lot when they heard a woman's scream. Sparing Ranma a quick glance, the girls saw him nod, just before the large blue kangaroo rat bounded off towards the source of the scream at a considerable clip.

"Right," Nabiki stated seriously. "Let's do this!"

"BISHOJO MAGICAL FIRE HENSHIN!" Akane yelled, posing dramatically, triggering her transformation.

Nabiki, embarrassed at her sister's antics, pretended that she didn't know the other girl as she too transformed.

While Akane was engulfed in her fiery transformation from last night, Nabiki was surprised to find a new one taking over: a column of rapidly expanding ice encasing her, only to explode outwardly in a hail of frozen shards and steam. Much faster than the watery makeover she encountered upon activating Ranma's disc the first time. Perhaps the urgency of the situation brought this one about… She'd have to ask Ranma later.

The two magical girls hit the ground running, in costume and powers ready to go.

O O O

Despite Ranma's best efforts, Akane was actually the first to reach the scene. Although he supposed that the blazing trail she left in her wake would be easy to follow. Good thing it was flickering out almost as fast as it had been ignited, or Nabiki would lag even further behind as she would have otherwise had to extinguish the flames. Not that the elder sister was currently slow by any common measure, as the pace she was setting would have been challenging for any Olympic runner. Ranma, on the other hand, was actually built for speed, as nobody beat 'roos (even small ones) at the long fast haul.

Except flaming speedster apprentices...

"Ewww..." Akane focused her attention first on the apparent cause of the disturbance. In this case a ten foot tall squid-faced humanoid youma that looked like it couldn't decide whether it was male or female. It had features appropriate for both genders. Quite prominent features at that, and rather more than simply numerous. Besides those appendages, there was the usual assortment of limbs, having as it did, arms and legs ending in taloned hands and feet. Actually, on closer inspection, most of the far, FAR too many tentacles seemed to be proper tentacles, just like those on a real squid or octopus. And what Akane had first taken as more feminine features seemed to be organs for spewing acidic inky liquid instead.

Okay, so it wasn't a tentacle rape demon. It was, however, causing havoc, terrorizing people, and very, very, slimy. She was actually hesitant to approach the hideous youma before she noticed a woman laying in a pool of blood nearby…

A woman that was missing her face, and a portion of her skull and brain…

And there was a corresponding bloodstain on the youma's facial tenticals…

Akane took action before the monster could attack anyone else!

"Flameraker!" Akane shouted as she slashed the air in front of her diagonally. The clawing motion sent an arc of flame sweeping across the distance between her and the monster, striking it squarely in its torso.

FWOOM!

The creature's excretions turned out to be surprisingly flammable.

O O O

Nodoka stared at her husband incredulously. What Genma had told her of the training trip so far was turning out to be hard to take. Oh, to be sure, most of it was quite normal, consisting of a sensei seeking ever more challenging obstacles for a promising student, and much of that spoke rather well of her husband and son. It was the other parts that were bothering Nodoka. How, in the names of all the kami, was Genma expecting Ranma to fulfill the multiple marriage promises he had made for his son?

At the very least, Nodoka would have expected Genma to stop home from time to time in an effort to produce more heirs after making such boneheaded mistakes. Or perhaps gone through the effort to adopt more sons to fulfill the need.

Hearing about the horrors of the Neko-Ken from her husband's own lips left Nodoka with an icy pit of fear in her stomach. Where was Ranma? Why wasn't he here? What had happened to their only child that Genma would come home alone to bear the sole weight of her judgment on his vow to turn Ranma into a Man among Men?

Oh Kami-sama, what had happened to her little boy?

O O O

The monster was only mildly irritated at this turn of events. Sure, the fire elemental had seared away most of its thinner tentacles in its initial attack, and it had been forced to draw its acidic poison glands back into its body to prevent any more of them from exploding, but over all, the situation didn't appear to be too bad. Fire elementals may be strong in their particular field, but they also had some pretty severe weaknesses.

And these humans, like those on so many other worlds, kept plenty of water handy.

Reaching for the fire hydrant, it puzzled over the garbage can it now possessed. Shaking its head, it tossed it away and reached again for the hydrant, only to come up with a box of muffins. It looked at the fire hydrant, growling from deep within itself, and tried again to grab the hydrant. It roared in fury, coming up with a box of unused fireworks…

O O O

Ranma stayed hidden as he looked around for something else to stop the large youma from grabbing the fire hydrant. Not that being exposed to water would do much more than distract Akane, or perhaps dampen her elemental powers a bit, but that was a distraction she couldn't afford to have right now.

Damn her for a fool for running into combat without knowing what even some of her abilities were. And damn him for a fool as well for letting her. If he wasn't so sure that Akane would leave herself wide open trying to 'protect' him, he'd leap out and face the monster directly.

Which wasn't a bad idea, actually, but Ranma was still trying to figure out how he had gotten so big the previous day. As small as he currently was, he doubted that he'd make more than a light snack to the obviously (and horrifically) carnivorous youma.

Hey, Nabiki showed up! And she's taking stock of the situation before getting involved.

The largish azure kangaroo rat placed a can of kerosene between the fire hydrant and the creature's seeking tentacles before hopping off to help advise his other charge towards a suitable course of action that wouldn't interfere with her sister...

O O O

Nabiki's mind reeled. There was Akane, fighting a giant squid-faced youma, as if she were some hyped up little superball bouncing here there and everywhere as she attacked, dodged, and feinted. Nabiki would have been really impressed if Akane didn't look like she was half out of control for most of it.

"What is that thing?" Nabiki asked, noting that Ranma was bounding towards her.

"Smarter than it looks, for one thing," Ranma replied. "Look, we haven't gotten around to training the two of you for teamwork with your powers, so I'm going to have to ask you to sit this one out until I can get Akane to back off. I think it's mistaken her for an actual elemental or something, and it's trying to put her out with water."

"Right. I don't need to be used against my little sister. Got it," the blue haired girl readily agreed. "I'll just help get the civilians clear of the area."

"Sounds good," Ranma agreed. "Since there's only one beasty, try to encase the thing in ice once Akane is clear. Now I'm going back to the fight before she gets into more serious trouble."

Unfortunately, the monster chose that moment to reveal that it had gotten the fire girl's measure. It snapped up a STOP sign and ran her through with it, pinning her to the sidewalk like a bug.

Ranma was quite surprised when he burst into flames. And was promptly launched over the roofs by another package of fireworks like the one he had found abandoned earlier.

"AKANE!" Nabiki screamed in horror as she watched her younger sister receive a stop sign post through her heart. "Akane..."

At first paralyzed in grief for her fallen sister, Nabiki could only watch in horror and disgust as the creature lurked over Akane's all too still form. The fear gave way to disgust as it inserted THAT into her sisters mouth and seemed about to go into full tentacle rape demon mode.

Disgust rapidly became helpless anger, which turned to impotent fury...

Which gave way to reckless rage!

With a roar not unlike the crashing of a tsunami during a coastal monsoon, Nabiki charged into battle!

Nabiki's first kick was easily blocked by the tentacle demon thing. Not that it helped the creature all that much considering that she hit like a runaway freight train. The monster was knocked back through the side of a building, and Nabiki followed through the hole she had made without hesitation.

The thing had killed her baby sister and had been about to rape her corpse.

It wasn't going to live another day if the enraged water warrior could do anything about it!

O O O

Kei Murphy, a half-gaijin Japanese woman with red hair, green eyes, and generous… assets, blinked as a flaming object bounced off the hood of the car she was just about to get into. After quickly checking the red and black sports car for damage, she decided to see just what had hit her baby in the first place, and was somewhat surprised to find a blazing rat get up from a pile of smoldering fruit from a collapsed display.

Before she could investigate any further, she heard a tremendous series of crashes, and whipped around just in time to see a large, greenish, tentacled youma burst through a wall on the other side of the street in a rolling bounce that ended up caving in the door of the car parked ahead of hers. She could see a girl in a blue costume on the far side of the hole that went clear through two buildings.

A girl that was charging through the wreckage in a blind fury, gaining size and mass every time her path intercepted broken water pipes. She noted that the blue costume seemed to dissolve, leaving the blue haired girl nude as she grew larger, and then larger again.

Kei scrambled to get her car started and out of the way of the second combatant as the rapidly growing magical girl charged the monster that had just ran past her, ducking into another building.

Kei was reaching for her cell phone even as the now eight foot tall girl ran by in pursuit, and had started to call into the Agency, when the monster came crashing back through the second floor wall above her and become imbedded in the wall of the building across the street.

"Oh shit!" Hitting the gas, Kei just barely pulled away as the girl fighting the monster, now at least fifteen feet tall and more obviously made of water, jumped out of the same hole and landed right where her car had been. Sighing in relief as her red and black baby once again escaped damage, the woman decided to try to get further away from the battle before calling the incident in to her employers.

Unfortunately, before she got more than half a block down the street, a fire hydrant landed in her passenger seat, having come through a brand new hole in the roof and causing her to scramble out of her car. This was shortly followed by the hood of her formerly pristine vehicle caving in as the youma landed on it. Which in itself proceeded a crushing downward punch from a now forty foot tall watery titaness, whose fist had just sent her engine block into the pavement.

Tears poured down Kei's face, having narrowly escaped being crushed with her car, as she watched from the sidewalk the giant water girl chase the monster down the street.

"That's it!" Kei screamed, summoning her Spirit Gun, triggering her own magical girl transformation. She ignored her brief nudity as she went past the wreckage of her baby, knowing from past experience that few, if any, people would be paying any attention to her at all right at the moment thanks to the glamour that accompanied her henshin sequence. "You two are going down!"

O O O

Akane shook her head to clear it as she started to shift her legs and elbows to get up. She was short of breath and pretty sure that she had a cracked rib from that last blow with the chunk of concrete on the bottom of the signpost, so she was grateful for whatever caused the youma to move on.

"Yo, Sparky," that voice belonged to Sensei! "You feelin' okay?"

Shaking her head again, Akane blinked her eyes open and tried to focus on Sensei's voice. He was standing on her torso for some reason, about where her collar bones were, leaning over her face and blocking her view. He also appeared to be made out of flame now, although he still had those pretty blue eyes. Eyes that radiated concern for her welfare.

"Guess I bit off more than I could chew, Sensei," the fire warrior said. "I think I have a cracked rib..."

"Yeah, well, it happens to the best of us," Sensei told her. "Still, I shouldn't have let you run off ahead like that without any idea of what your powers are, or how to use them."

"I was doing sort of okay until the thing hit me, but I guess you have a point, Sensei," Akane responded as she tried to sit up. However, something was blocking her. "Sensei, something is pinning me down."

"Oh, that," The blazing kangaroo rat tilted his head to the side then looked back. "It probably has something to do with the stop sign sticking through that flaming hole in your chest. If you could turn the rest of the way into fire for a moment you should be able to get up."

"Sensei," Akane grumbled as she tried to figure out how to follow the instructions, all the while wondering why she wasn't going into shock. She didn't even feel particularly hurt other than being short of breath for some reason, and rather tired. "Did anyone ever tell you that you have a horrible bedside manner?"

"No," Ranma looked at Akane again, and tilted his head to one side. "Why do you ask?"

O O O

As Kei raced after the water titan and the squid-man, she once again wished that her so-called mascot hadn't been high on pot when it found her. At least, that had been the first impression she had when he first introduced himself while she was visiting her American relatives in the states all those years ago, when she really was a teenager instead of just looking like one. She had long since come to the conclusion that the bizarre ferret was either defective, a pervert, or both.

While devil hunters could end up with virtually anything as their summoned combat apparel, she had the dubious privilege of wearing painted on shorts, steel-toe boots, and an abbreviated vest that left her midriff bare and was clearly designed to remain open. The shorts had thee square cut-outs running down the outside of each hip, making it very clear that she had no panties, and a set of three more over her crotch, consisting of a broad circle braced by two hearts. The vest was small and clearly designed to be decorative rather than modest, as it left most of her otherwise bare bosom exposed and the only explanation for it staying in place to cover what little it did was that it was magic. Even so, her breasts were left free to bounce, sway, and jiggle with every move she made, which the abbreviated vest never compensated for, and even when she was still, it didn't quite cover all of either nipple.

And prominently displayed at least once on each piece of her costume was the circle-over-cross that was the ancient Greco-Roman symbol for female, which had become the damn near universal one for woman in the contemporary era, as well as the standard under which many feminists and advocates of women's lib hung their banners. A fact that caused her no end of headaches whenever she happened across one while wearing her costume, as one of the symbols was presented right across her crotch.

On top of all that, the whole ensemble, such as it was, was done in eye-straining neon yellow and day-glow red.

The first time she had complained to Koko, he had actually made the vest even smaller. His response to her next complaint was to enhance her breasts instead. After which, she had shot at him with her then new Spirit gun, causing Koko to make himself scarce for the next three years (when she had stopped taking potshots at him every time he showed up).

When the Agency offered her a job and assistance in remaining discrete as a 'behind the scenes' devil hunter upon her return to Japan, she had snatched it up. Granted, she still had her horrible costume, but now she had the option of changing out of it after she had powered up, if she had her new one available.

Unfortunately, said costume, a nice and very classy crimson and gold chengosam with matching slippers, was currently stuck under the crushed passenger seat of her flattened car.

Growling at the injustice of it all, Kei took aim and let off a couple of shots through the towering water girl!

Which might explain why she missed the fact that a manhole cover had somehow gotten misplaced during the battle...

"Aaaah!" SPLASH! "Dammit!"

O O O

Feeling mostly better now that the hole in her chest had closed itself, Akane cautiously followed her sister's trail of destruction, with Ranma now riding on her shoulders. She was vaguely aware that her shirt now had a gaping hole in the front and back, and that her left breast was thus bare, but it just didn't feel important at the moment, so Akane ignored it. "Sensei... Why am I still alive? That post had to have taken out my heart and left lung, not to mention part of my spine as well..."

"Ever try to put out a fire by poking it with a stick, Sparky?" The still flaming kangaroo rat asked in return. "It doesn't work that way. While you aren't exactly a fire elemental, you aren't exactly human anymore either, at least not when you're powered up. When you need to, you can borrow traits from either side. For example, turning part of yourself into fire to cover vital functions."

"So we're immortal?" Akane asked the burning kangaroo rat on her shoulder.

"Akane," Ranma's tone became dead serious as he tried to look her straight in the eyes as best as he could from that angle. "Had that creature had time to douse the part of you that had turned to fire, you'd be dead right now. You are not immortal. None of you are. You are just very hard to hurt in any significant manner. There is a big difference, and I want you to remember that."

"Yes, Sensei," Akane nodded sheepishly, realizing that she had been being pretty cavalier about the risks she had been taking so far.

"Now lets go save Nerima from that rampage, okay," Ranma suggested. Then, with a smirk, he continued, "We might as well stop Squid-face from destroying Nerima too, while we're at it."

"Yes, Sensei!" Akane agreed, picking up the pace. Then she realized something. "Hey! Are you calling my sister a monster?"

"No," Ranma stated, earning a sharp nod from Akane. "I'm saying that she's on a rampage. Look around you, Sparky. Does any of this damage look like it was caused by tall dark and octopus-like?"

Indeed, from what Akane could tell from looking at the damage now that she was paying attention, it appeared that Nerima had been hit with a localized typhoon rather than a tentacled monster...

O O O

"So, in the dead of the night, I used every technique I could remember from the dread Master's teachings, and made my way into Shampoo's house to take our son's token from her," Genma continued his long explanation. "There was no way Ranma could be meant for someone who wouldn't let him out of his damn token except for showing him off or when under orders. Our son deserves better than that. If becoming a guardian beast instead of being cursed is a sign of worthiness, then by the kami that did this to him, let Ranma be worthy of serving more considerate champions!"

Nodoka was startled when Genma's fist hit the tatami mat in emphasis, but she understood and agreed with him on the subject of Ranma deserving better than the treatment he was getting from this Shampoo girl. Still, tears rolled down her face from the knowledge that their little boy had his life usurped by a destiny that stole away his humanity.

"I am sad to say that it was only then that my eyes began to open to the kind of man I had become, Nodoka," Genma's tone was full of self-recrimination and regret. "I decided to return to Japan, to see if any of my friend Soun Tendo's daughters could activate our son's token. I figured that if Ranma must serve a female champion, let it be in partial fulfillment of at least one of the pledges I had made. I also hoped that Soun's daughters would give Ranma better treatment than he received under his champion in Joketsuzoku. Much to my relief and delight, TWO of Soun's daughters can activate Ranma's token!"

"Ranma is there then?" Nodoka asked. "At the Tendo's?"

"He will be staying there as I try to search for either a cure or for the conditions under which he may be returned to his humanity," Genma confirmed. "Nabiki, who was able to draw the elemental power of water from Ranma's token, treats our son as a person, and seems to be his current chosen warrior. Akane, Nabiki's younger sister, drew fire, and seems to consider our son to be her sensei. Either one should make a fine wife for our son once he regains his humanity."

"Would he be there now?" Nodoka asked, almost begging.

"Not at the moment, Dear," Genma shook his head negatively. "Nabiki and Akane both need to be trained, so Ranma is starting their training today. They should return to the Tendo home around or shortly after supper. In the meantime, I had planned on visiting some local shrines and temples after bearing your judgment, should I still be able to."

Genma looked his wife straight in the eyes and then bowed low from his sitting position, making what may be his final request. "Nodoka, all I ask... All I can dare to ask... Is that I alone bear the full weight of your judgment should you decide that I have failed in my vow to raise our son, Ranma, to be a man among men. That, should you find it impossible to forgive me, that you at least forgive our son and continue my quest to find a cure, or the conditions for his return to humanity after I am gone..."

O O O

The battered c'thulhoid continued to dodge the powerful blows of the giant water girl, desperately wondering when she would run out of power. It was really wishing it hadn't tried to imitate tentacle rape in an attempt to lure the other champion into battle. After observing the female get bigger and more water-like with every exposure to the broken pipes cause by their battle, it decided to try to lure its opponent away from any more of the human hive structures. Some random searching had eventually lead the battle to what appeared to be an area set aside for gravel storage.

It was dry, had the advantage of loose earth material which might disrupt and weaken fluid based creatures (like water elementals or this female hybrid), and at the very least, the huge piles of gravel should rob its opponent of much of her momentum.

YES!

The invader cheered internally as its opponent began to slow down and show signs of tiring. The female hybrid was beginning to act disoriented and confused, obviously near the end of her current limits.

When the hybrid suddenly shed her excess water and dropped listlessly to her knees, it decided that it was time move in for the capture and began to trudge through the sodden gravel. It noted that her raiment had briefly reappeared before mostly dissolving away again, leaving a protective cap over her reproductive opening similar to the one that had impeded its simulated rape of the other female's corpse.

It was rather surprised when the supposedly deceased fire hybrid streaked in and rescued her now powerless partner, considering that it had pinned her to the ground in what should have been a fatal manner. If the local protectors had _that_ kind of recovery ability, it really couldn't afford to play games like this.

Weighing its options, the monster decided to just go for the kill and eliminate both hybrids now while they were both still weak.

The sudden appearance of the guardian beast, now flaming, between it and the hybrids gave the youma only a moment's pause. Such a tiny flame would be easy to extinguish. It gurgled in amusement at the burning rodent looked like it was about to attack. The little thing, at best, could only have a fraction of the power either of the two fe-

O O O

Akane turned around at Sensei's roar, so much louder than his small size would suggest was possible. As she stood stunned, with her exhausted sister in her arms, Akane could only stare in awe at the trailing end of Sensei's breath of fire. The only sign of the youma was a dark carbon shadow on a now glassy and smoldering pile of gravel...

"Sensei..."

"Let's go home, Sparky," Ranma stated. "Training's done for the day."

O O O

END CHAPTER EIGHT

OMAKE THEATER I PRESENTS: House R'hul

R'hul sat at the table as its minion's mother served dinner.

"So, tell me, Mr. R'hul," the father began as his wife served his favorite teriyaki eel. "How did you meet my son?"

"Blurp burple belch cough burple." R'hul replied as politely as it could with a face full of tentacles.

"Isn't that just the most incredible thing you ever heard dear?" the mother asked her husband.

R'hul, for its part, just cursed his luck at the fact that its lead minion's parents were C'thulhu's Witnesses...

OMAKE THEATER II PRESENTS: The 60,000,000,000 Double-Dollar Girl...

Meryl Stryfe and Millie Thompson looked over the damage in New York. Most of it appeared to have been caused by a localized monsoon, but reports had ascribed it all to one person, whom they were now trying to locate. A person who was probably now the most wanted person on the planet, described by many as a permanent natural disaster, and the bearer of the largest price on her head Meryl had ever heard about.

Rumors and tall tales had the origins of this person as being close to a thousand years ago, at the start of the first demon wars. The damage caused then by the woman and her team mates was impressive even then, before the Chaos Demon that was supposed to have been the source of their power was sealed away with most of its warriors.

Only one had escaped that trap, and had been searching for a way to free her companions ever after.

Her power had grown through the ages, as had her cunning and resolve.

She had evaded many capture attempts, and even with the apparent hatred that the rest of the humanity bore for her, she openly fought the demon oppressors whenever she encountered them.

Meryl and Millie's mission was to find her and try to find some way to control the damage in the wake of her battles so as to cut down on insurance premiums paid out by their company.

The humanoid typhoon, Nabiki the Stampede, last remaining servant of the Chaos Demon Ranma...


	3. Chapter 3

_**MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA: BETA EDITION**_

**MGR: Director's Cut**

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Golden Arms

And the return of some guy named Steve.

DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanfics, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even _gasp_ American comic books!).

TAGS: Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse

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Look! An obvious distraction!

**CHAPTER THREE:**

Akane slogged across the sodden mass of mud and gravel, carrying Nabiki towards a relatively dry - or at least clean - patch of grass. Setting the elder girl down, she checked her sister over.

"Nabiki?" Akane prompted, as she gently poked and prodded her practically nude sister here and there, exploring for possible injuries. In the process of doing that, she plucked off the odd triangle that was all that remained of her sister's costume. Seeing as how there weren't any apparent injuries in that location, she decided to study the piece directly, and plucked off her own to compare them.

Both cups were made of some firm but pliable material that was translucent when held up to the light. Her own was ruby red trimmed with what looked like (but couldn't actually be) brass, while Nabiki's was sapphire blue bordered with a lighter blue. And each had the kanji for their respective elements displayed prominently across them. They were actually kind of pretty, in her opinion, and she now had two of them assuming that the one she woke up with was still in her room.

Returning her attention to Nabiki, Akane noted that her sister's hair was still blue, and that her eyes were still bright green, if unfocused, indicating that Nabiki remained in her empowered state…

Just then, the odd colors seemed to drain away, leaving Nabiki with her natural hues. Akane cocked an eyebrow as her sister's pubic hair returned over previously smooth skin, but the red haired warrior of fire didn't consider this relevant to her sister's health and thus chose to ignore it for the moment.

"Hey, Sparky," Ranma called out as he hopped over. "How's Squirt doing? I just felt her power drop - not that there was much left anyway_yyyups_!"

Akane looked at the largish blue kangaroo-rat curiously as he spun around and avoided looking directly at Nabiki. "Nabiki doesn't seem to be hurt, Sensei. Not physically at least, but she's exhausted, and I think she's in shock."

"I'll get your packs. She'll probably feel better once she's wearing something."

"If you say so. She didn't seem to be bothered about being nude last night."

"Whoa… You girls weren't kidding when you said that you didn't seem to care about clothes while you were powered up!"

"Why should we? It's not like we actually need them. Besides, from what you told us earlier, you basically see us in the nude anyway, when we're powered up. I bet you can't even tell that my shirt has a hole in it."

"It does?" Despite his misgivings, Ranma couldn't help turning to look over his shoulder.

"Right here," Akane cupped her left breast in demonstration. "Boob's been hanging out since I got skewered. Sensei?"

Akane watched as the oversized blue kangaroo-rat stiffened up and keeled over.

"Honestly, Sensei," she huffed, "you've got to get over this sometime. It's just skin."

O O O

Kei poked her head out of the manhole and noted that the sounds of high impact combat seemed to have died off, although there was plenty of other activity in the battle zone. Taking the opportunity presented by the presumably momentary peace, she dismissed her powers, causing her garish costume to fade out of existence, to be replaced a few seconds later by the clothes she had started out in. And incidentally leaving her clean of the muck from the storm drain she had just crawled out of.

Being a magical girl definitely had its perks.

O O O

After poking Ranma a couple of times to see if he'd respond, Akane set her sensei on a convenient set of cushions and stood up, looking for the packs. Deciding that it didn't make sense to remain powered up while her sister wasn't, particularly if they wanted to maintain secret identities, the Warrior of Fire released her power and allowed it to flicker out.

And immediately regretted it as she not only found herself nude, but also doubly embarrassed for having been so blasé about such things only moments ago. Her blush deepened and spread further as she realized that she had just treated her sister's bare breasts as a couple of pillows to rest Sensei on. Not to mention having thought nothing at all about removing the only pieces of so-called clothing that either of them seemed to keep on whenever they powered down.

Quickly replacing the stringless briefs, Akane was relieved to see that they actually stayed in place. While they were far from being even remotely modest, they were quite literally better than wearing nothing at all. If only barely so.

The flustered girl looked about frantically for the packs containing their spare clothes, but she didn't see them anywhere. Covering herself as best as she could with only her hands and arms, Akane trudged back out into the mire of mud and gravel, searching for any sign of the missing articles. After a moment's thought, she remembered that they had been near the back of the lot, a bit to the left, so she turned slightly and continued trudging along, wishing that her sister hadn't shed several tons of water all over the place.

A short while later, her eyes were drawn to the still steaming pile of scorched and glassy rocks that marked the spot where Sensei had killed the youma. The ground there had been baked dry, and was still smoldering in places, but it was easier to walk on. And for some reason her feet didn't seem to register the residual heat.

On the other side of the pile of glazed gravel Akane finally spotted where she and her sister had started from and stopped short. She didn't see any sign of either pack, but she did see an odd dual blast mark. Half of which was burnt out, while the other had large shards of ice imbedded in a radius in and around it. On closer inspection, she spotted what looked like a couple of twisted wires laying on the ground roughly between them.

Curious, Akane carefully navigated around the sharp ice fragments and reached down to pull one of the wires free to see what it was. Growing pale, she realized that the so-called wire was actually the zipper to one of their packs, fused solid…

O O O

Kei sighed in resignation as she came to the realization that it would be nearly impossible to find either of the two combatants she had been chasing without the sounds of battle guiding her. One would think that a fifty foot tall naked girl made of water would be easy to spot, especially with the racket she had been making while fighting the squid youma, but an eerie silence had fallen over the battle zone.

Now that the initial incident seemed to be over, more and more people had started to come out of the woodwork (occasionally quite literally in the case of some of the partially collapsed buildings). A few were engaging in clean-up activities, or first-aid, or were making an effort to dig others out of the rubble, but most were wandering around aimlessly in a state of dazed shock.

From the sheer number of naked people scattered among everyone else, Kei deduced that a bath-house had been yet another casualty of the fight. Sure enough, as she followed the trail of wreckage, she found a demolished building with shattered bathing fixtures.

Sighing again, Kei Murphy wondered just _how_ she was going to write this one up in her report. There was simply _no way_ to convince _this_ many people to be discrete about what happened…

O O O

"Oh well," Akane muttered to herself. "I guess there's no other choice, unless I want to try to make it back to the house in the nude."

Smirking, she once again posed dramatically and shouted: "_**BISHOJO MAGICAL FIRE HENSHIN!**_"

Akane held her pose for a few moments as embers swirled briefly around her body before realizing that nothing else happened.

Blinking, and filling a little silly, she changed her pose and tried again, with less certainty: "_Bishojo Magical Fire Henshin?_"

This time, there were only a few sparks, and they flickered out almost as soon as they popped up.

"Um… I'd like to transform now, please?"

Akane waited hopefully for a moment, but there wasn't even a spark this time.

"Dammit!"

Somewhat dispirited, Akane made her way back to where she had left Nabiki and Sensei.

O O O

"Husband," Nodoka began formally, once Genma had finished his tale. "You have come to me, bearing a tremendous burden of guilt for your actions against our son, Ranma. You have done deeds, both petty and grave, that have put the honor of both our son and our family at risk. And you have led our son to a training ground where his very humanity was stolen from him. For any of this I could condemn you, and possibly our son as well, and either have you thrown out of the clan or called upon to fulfill your pledge to its fullest extent. And yet..."

Nodoka's tone grew gentler, but no less formal. "And yet, there was much good in what you have told me as well. Yes, you have led our son time and time again into danger, and time and time again he has overcome the challenges you have placed before him, thus he grew in the Art of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. Yes, you have accepted tasks and quests in our son's name for the sake of petty greed, but he has thus come to learn to aid people in need and has come to be a better person for it. And yes, you did lead our son to Jusenkyo, but I can find no honor in requiring either of you to pay for what an accidental encounter with magic has done.

"Genma, even if had Ranma not been found worthy and had been left with the original effect you say this Nyanniichuan, Spring of Drowned Girl, would have had - I could not have been able to justify calling either of you to commit seppuku for something that magic and the whims of the kami have done. And you say that the locals told you that Ranma has been found worthy to be called to serve a higher destiny. For that I can find no fault in Ranma that I would deem unmanly at this point.

"Finally, Genma, even though you perceive yourself to have failed our son," Nodoka's voice was gentler still, almost a whisper in the still air of the Saotome residence. "Even with the burden you have placed on your own soul, you have come to me alone, to bear the full weight of my judgement, asking only that I spare, and even aid, our son Ranma. That showed a rare courage, my husband, a courage I have not seen from you in many years, since about a year or so after Happosai had taken over your training from your father. Once again, you have become the man I had married all those years ago. A fine man, who may stumble on occasion, but one of courage who can rise to meet the challenges placed before him."

With that, Nodoka stood and turned to leave the room, pausing at the door to look back. "Come, Genma, I wish to reacquaint myself with the man I married away from these grim trappings."

Genma stood, spirits soaring high with renewed hope within his heart. Soon he caught up with Nodoka as she headed for their room.

And then he received a bop on the head with the hilt of the Saotome Family Sword.

"And you'll get much more than that if I find out that this multiple fiancée thing is some sort of perverted tradition of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts! Don't think that I've forgotten about Atsuko, Genma!"

"Yes, Dear... I mean NO, Dear, it's not a tradition of the School..."

"Or Kiyoko!"

"I keep telling you, I just walked her home because she was my neighbor! Nothing ever happened!"

"OR Hitomi!"

"But Nodoka, Sweetie, that was _years_ ago! _Decades_ even!"

O O O

Slogging her way back to where she had left Sensei and Nabiki, Akane noticed that the magic rat was still laying on her sister's chest, both equally dazed. Deciding that Sensei would probably recover from his dazed state sooner if he _wasn't_ sprawled across a couple of boobs, she picked him up and set him on the damp grass instead. Just to the right, she spotted Sensei's magic blue rock, so she picked it up and set it on his chest…

_Voip!_

Akane stared in wide-eyed shock as Sensei puffed into a small cloud of blue smoke, which flowed into the sapphire lens.

"Sensei?"

Akane picked up the blue lens and poked it. "Sensei?"

She then shook it a little. "Sensei? Are you in there?"

The shaking became vigorous, accompanied by heavy patting. "Sensei! Come out here! We need you!"

An incandescent spark arced from the lens, forcing the frustrated girl to drop the stone as she fell back on her ass. A moment later, it emitted a small beam of light which projected a holographic 'screen' in mid-air at Akane's eye level.

**The User Interface Peripheral is off-line for memory integration and alignment.**

"User what?"

**The User Interface Peripheral is Magical Guardian Ranma's projected avatar.**

"I don't understand."

**Clearly.**

"Hey!" Akane bopped the lens, only to be laid flat by another spark of electricity.

O O O

R'hul pondered his new appearance in the bathroom mirror. He had a gender now, and had selected a more or less bishonen appearance based on his chief minion's opinion that many of the local females liked that look and would thus be disarmed by his new form. He missed his tentacles though. Which, he supposed, was why he had chosen to be male, given the similarity that their one appendage had to his race's probing tentacles, even if it was far too short and had an entirely different function.

Getting dressed in some of the better clothing of his chief minion's sire, making sure that the attire was clean first to be sure, R'hul swept his long wavy black hair back and attempted to scry H'rys' location in order to see what the local defenders brought to bear...

Oh dear...

This could not possibly be any good...

R'hul stared into the mirror, viewing an image that should have been H'rys and its immediate environment. Especially since the scrying spell was specifically cast to focus on the other agent, and should have located him either in this world or back in the staging area of the previous one. Instead, he continued to gaze upon his own reflection as he pondered what had happened to H'rys. The possibilities were various but rather low, ranging from being lost in transfer due to irregularities in the interdimensional barriers all the way to instant death upon arrival due to efficient local defenses.

R'hul dismissed the later out of hand, given the evidence of his own continued existence, and while the first was possible, weak zones in interdimensional barriers tended to diffuse over a relatively large area. Thus, it was rather unlikely that any of his local minions had placed a tag far enough away for that to be a problem. This left the answer as being somewhere in the middle. Time to back off for a bit, have his minions quietly gather information that might relate to what had happened to H'rys, and try to plan out the next probing action.

Dismissing the ineffective scrying spell, R'hul returned to the family room of his current domicile and sat down heavily on a recliner to consider how best to prepare his first report...

O O O

Akane woke up to someone tentatively shaking her shoulder. At her eyes fluttered open, her bleary gaze focused on the tear-filled face of her sister, who pulled her up into a fierce hug and began wailing: "WAAAAAAHHH! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! WAAAAAAHHH!"

Akane's hair toinged out of place here and there as her sister produced a fountain of tears that rivaled any of those performed by their father.

"Umm… There there?" Akane tried to comfort Nabiki, but couldn't seem to get her arms free enough to pat her sister's back.

"WAAAAAAHHH! YOU WERE STABBED THROUGH THE HEART WITH A SIGN POST! WAAAAAAHHH!"

"I'm all right, really…" Akane's discomfort grew as she realized that her bare breasts were mashed up against those of her sister.

"WAAAAAAHHH!"

"Need… air…"

"WAAAAAAHHH!"

"help…. please?"

An arc of electricity sparked from the nearby sapphire lens and played across the two sisters.

"Ow…"

"Thanks… I think…"

**Happy to be of service.**

"I'm beginning to dislike you…"

**Your gratitude is not required.**

"Uhg… Akane?" Nabiki groaned from where she lay staring at the sky. "Who are you talking too?"

"The magic screen thingy coming from Sensei's rock."

Nabiki sat up and looked at the floating holographic screen being projected before her sister's face. She cocked an eyebrow as it obligingly moved to where both of them could read the screen. "Ranma?"

**Magical Guardian Ranma is offline for memory defragmentation and compilation.**

"And you are?"

"A jerk!"

_ZAP!_

"OW! Stop zapping me already!"

**I am the Help Service.**

"Not very helpful if you ask me."

_ZAP!_

"OW! Quit it already!"

"Okay…" Nabiki said, giving the disc a healthy, respective distance. "Why is Ranma 'off-line' and why does he need his memory defragmented and compiled?"

**Magical Guardian Ranma's user interface avatar peripheral has been projected for an extended period. While this is ultimately to the Guardian's benefit, as it brings in new experiences and allows him to directly aid his champions, the peripheral still needs to be realigned with his core persona from time to time.**

"So you're not Ranma then."

**That is correct.**

"That's good. I don't think I could stand Sensei being a jerk."

_ZAP!_

"OW! Quit it!"

"So, you're here to help us while Ranma is out, huh?"

**If it is within my capabilities and limitations, yes.**

Nabiki looked at her sister, and then down at herself. "Can we have some clothes, please?"

**Certainly. You are free to dress yourself in any attire you can find.**

"What kind of defective advisor are you, anyway?"

_ZAP!_

"OW! Dammit!"

"Could you please stop zapping my sister?"

**I'll think about it.**

O O O

Under the afternoon sun, Shampoo frowned as she crossed a mountain clearing. For some reason, she was beginning to tire out, even with her having stayed in continuous contact with the ground since the night before. Her trackless steps had carried her for league upon league towards her goal, and she was starting to wonder just how far away her token had been taken by that thief of a panda.

Sand poured off of her body as Shampoo continued on for a few more steps before having to drop the now oppressive weight of her pack. She didn't feel so much physically exhausted as much as suddenly mentally weary. In fact, she began to experience some interesting hallucinations particular to the kind of fatigue brought about by sleep deprivation.

"Argh! What now? I've stayed powered up longer than this before," Shampoo grumbled irritably as she gathered up the clothing that was reforming on the ground from the scattered sand. "Unless it has something to do with using my Earth powers to recharge myself continuously since last night…"

Without bothering to get dressed, Shampoo tiredly set up her tent and bed roll near a mountain stream, and (after a few false starts) had a modest campfire going, complete with a grill supporting a small pot of vegetable stew.

As she wearily stirred the pot, Shampoo wondered just how long it would be before she could power up again. If it took too long, she'd have to lighten her load considerably so she could continue making good time when not the Earth Warrior.

O O O

"So, let me get this straight: We're stuck on the outskirts of Nerima with no clothes, no powers, and no Ranma."

**That is not entirely correct. You still have your elemental resistances. Neither of you are particularly susceptible to simple environmental exposure such as sunburns and hypothermia, and you both retain your immunities to your own elements. For example: You cannot drown, nor can your sister be burned. Also, you do have clothes, as you are still wearing your V-cup briefs.**

"I don't thing these things count as clothes," Akane grumbled. "They barely cover anything at all!"

**The V-cups cover what they are supposed to cover. Nothing more, and nothing less. They are listed as garments in my database. That you seem to have issues with them is your own problem.**

"Stop arguing with Help-chan, Akane," Nabiki sighed. "It's not getting either of us anywhere, and we're both still practically naked. How do these things stay on when we're not powered up anyway?"

**Magic**.

Nabiki leveled half-lidded eyes at the screen. "Okay, so I walked right into that one. Fair enough. Now… Do they actually do anything besides preserve just that little bit of modesty?"

**The V-cup stringless briefs you are wearing provide a limited amount of protection against conventional weapons even when you are not empowered. Also, they cannot be removed by those harboring malicious intentions towards you.**

"Well, that's something at least," the elder sister nodded. So they had some protection against rape. A very important consideration if they were going to end up fighting more of those… things. "Any idea how long Ranma will be down?"

**Unknown: This is the first time Magical Guardian Ranma has been permitted to use his avatar for such an extended period of time.**

"No use sitting around here any longer then." Nabiki picked up the sapphire lens as she stood up. "Come on, Akane, we may as well try to get home."

Nabiki froze as she caught sight of the end of a large gun barrel next to her head.

"You owe me a new car…" the girl in the day-glow outfit snarled.

Before Nabiki could blink, Akane had the stranger. After a brutal disarming, the younger sister flung the interloper over her shoulder by her weapon arm, slamming the stranger face down hard. With a sharp twist, Akane pinned the same arm behind the girl's back, and rapped her on the back of her skull, knocking her out.

"Thanks, Akane," Nabiki said as the two girls watched the other girl's eye-straining costume vanished, leaving her as naked as they were. The hand-cannon thingy disappeared at roughly the same time.

"No problem. I can't believe she snuck up on us."

"I can't believe there are other magical girls besides us."

"At least our costumes are better."

"No argument there," Nabiki agreed. "Let's get going - Ow! How can you walk in this stuff in bare feet?"

"You get used to it eventually."

"Carry me?"

"Alright," Akane sighed. "But only to the sidewalk."

O O O

R'hul, intent on keeping his current local domicile discrete for at least a while yet, had restored his chief minion's father and had proceeded to do some mnemonic editing to keep the man's behavior at work from arousing too many suspicions too soon. This had, naturally, required that he transform at least part of the way back into his true form, enough so that his smaller probing tentacles were both accessible and functional.

With the level of mental and behavioral editing required to force the older human to go through the motions of daily life in the local hive without giving anything away, R'hul didn't expect to get much more than an emotionless husk back by the time all was said and done. He was only a scout after all, hardly an expert at mental manipulation, so he couldn't be expected to maintain the integrity of his subject's persona as well as a dominator or governor could in his place.

The feral humans R'hul was using were a different story. They had only required a minimal amount of mental editing to place them under his control, so they still retained much of their core persona and would thus be able to interact with others within acceptable risk parameters without further interference on his part.

The fact that they were often deliberately absent from their instructional crèche provided a good enough cover for him to keep them away from their peers for a while. He'd eventually have to do something about the other parents as well, but for the moment R'hul knew that the social dynamics that generally produced feral humans would keep their suspicion levels low. At least as far as the matter of their offspring having been sublimated to the will of a superior entity. In any event, he would have all of his local minions over tonight, in order to find out more about this world and to see what sort of information gathering capabilities existed in the local hive.

O O O

Nabiki stared, stunned, at the sheer amount of damage she had caused in her battle with the tentacled rape demon, dropping her arms to her side as she completely forgot about her near nudity.

"And you say _I_ have a temper," Akane chided. She decidedly did not follow her sister's example, and kept her arms and hands where they could cover as much of her exposed bits as possible, thank you very much.

"You do. Apparently I have one too. Where did all the naked people come from?"

"You went through the bath-house."

"Oh…"

"At least no one seems to be seriously hurt."

"How can you say that? There's people wearing splints and bandages all over the place!"

"Maybe so, but everyone we can see is at least awake, if not exactly alert."

"I can't believe I did all of this…"

"Sis, you were going to town Godzilla-style against Squid-face. To be honest, I can't believe you didn't cause _more_ damage." Akane looked at her sister and noticed that Nabiki was now walking normally, with her arms at her sides instead of trying to hide her naughty-bits. "You do realize that we're still naked, right?"

"We still have those V-cup briefs."

"Like those even count! We can't let anybody see those or they might guess who we are!"

"They might guess that we're ourselves?" the elder girl chided dryly. "I would think our faces would be a better clue than that, Akane."

"Argh! No! I meant that these V-cup thingies are color coded pieces of our sentai team costumes! Anybody who sees them might make the connection between us and our empowered forms!"

"That's actually a good point," Nabiki conceded. And then plucked off her own V-cup and tossed it into a public trash barrel, causing her shocked sister to face fault.

"Why did you throw it out!" Akane hissed. "Now you really are naked! And why did you stop covering yourself!"

"What's the point? With _this many _naked people wandering around, what difference does a couple more nude girls trying to get home make?"

"That's… but… The point is… Argh! Not _everyone_ in the streets is naked you know!"

"And your point is?"

"I still can't believe you're comfortable doing that."

"Hey, how often can I be naked in public and not get in trouble for it?"

"You are an exhibitionist and a flirt!"

"Hey, if you've got it, you may as well flaunt it."

"Pervert…"

O O O

Kei woke up and pushed herself carefully into a sitting position rubbing the back of her head. After a moment, she realized that she was naked and summoned her gun once again to trigger her costume, and then released the effect.

Which worked out well enough except that her original clothes _still_ didn't return.

"Dammit! I was out too long."

Looking around, she failed to spot either of the two presumably new magical girls anywhere nearby.

Sighing at the lost opportunity, and realizing that she mishandled the situation pretty badly, Kei wondered if it was too late to pretend to be one of the bath-house refugees, or if she should just give up and summon her horrible costume again…

O O O

Eventually, the two Tendo sisters noticed that more and more people seemed to be heading in one direction as opposed to wandering around randomly. One of the rescue workers spotted them and approached them.

"Ah… More bath-house refugees, I take it?"

"Yes, sir," Nabiki lied easily, as her sister blushed and tried harder to cover herself. Nabiki herself didn't bother, and merely wrapped her arms under her breasts as if nothing was wrong.

The man raised an eyebrow at the one girls cool demeanor in this situation. "Are either of you hurt?"

"No."

"I'm fine."

"Okay then. If you head over that way for three blocks and turn left, and then right at the next block over, you should see a bunch of tents. Since you don't seem to be hurt, you'll most likely be directed to registration first, and then to distribution for blankets and basic supplies if you haven't been handed any by that time."

"Oh thank God, you have no idea just how mortifying it is being-"

Nabiki placed a quick hand over Akane's mouth to shut her up.

"You better hurry if you want to get a blanket. I don't think anyone was prepared for so many bath-house refugees, and between you guys and the medical personnel, they're going pretty fast!"

"We'll head right over."

"Thanks again!"

The two girls stepped up their pace to a brisk walk as they followed the man's directions. Akane was impatient and wanted to go faster, but knew that her sister was not conditioned to be able to jog on hard surfaces with bare feet. Not to mention the fact that areas of the streets were still scattered with random debris, requiring that they pay attention to where they were stepping.

Sure enough, they arrived at the perimeter of the disaster zone, where several tents were still being set up in a parking lot by emergency service personnel and volunteers. Doctors and paramedics were already sorting through and treating a crowd of injured refugees, aided by those volunteers who knew first-aid. Fire fighters and rescue workers were coordinating efforts to search ruined buildings in hopes of locating and digging out any survivors that may have become trapped, while other rescue workers and volunteers attempted to distribute supplies as fairly as possible. The police were working crowd control and trying to keep things organized with some difficulty, and there was an atmosphere of general chaos as more and more refugees made it to the temporary relief site.

Unfortunately, no-one seemed to be handing out blankets by the time they got there, and they even saw some people being sent on there way out of the area while still nude.

"Dammit."

"We'll just have to deal with it, Akane."

A somewhat flustered woman spotted the two girls and made her way over to them bowed briefly in apology. "I'm sorry, but we're out of blankets already. No one was prepared for an occupied bath-house to be hit during a disaster."

"Why are those people being sent on their way?" Akane asked, bobbing her head to indicate who she was talking about. "Couldn't we wait in one of the tents for more blankets to arrive?"

"I'm not sure. I think most of the tents are being set up to take care of the injured first."

"Oh…" Nabiki looked downcast as yet another reminder of the consequences of her unbridled rampage was driven home.

"It'll be alright, you'll see," Akane tried to comfort her sister who had been alternating between forced nonchalance and obvious depression. At least she _thought_ the nonchalance was forced. With Nabiki, it could be really hard to tell sometimes…

"Well, if you could just head over to that tent over there and register with the officers inside…"

"Sure," Nabiki shrugged.

"Okay." Akane agreed. Even if they weren't in the tent for very long, fewer people would be able to see them.

After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, the two girls walked into the indicated tent and approached a police officer sitting behind a folding table. His partner was standing off to one side, and both of them maintained strictly professional expressions.

"We're out of blankets," the officer sitting behind the table began. "It will probably be a while before we get more. We weren't prepared for a bath-house to be hit."

"We heard," Nabiki responded dryly as her sister's frustration mounted.

"Just checking. Names?"

"Nabiki Tendo."

"Akane Tendo."

"Related?"

"We're sisters," Nabiki supplied.

"Got it," The sitting officer jotted down a note. "Any injuries?"

"No," both girls responded in tandem.

"Well, if you could just sign these forms and fill in the contact information, you can be on your way."

"Can't we just wait in a tent?" Akane asked as she and her sister filled out the forms.

"Sorry, but we're going to need the tents to shelter the injured," the sitting officer explained. "If you aren't hurt and can make it home on your own, we'll have to send you on your way."

"But we're naked!"

"I'm sorry, but you aren't the first people we've had to send home like this."

"Pervert!"

"Let it go, Akane."

"Don't worry about it," the other officer interjected. "I can understand where she's coming from. I'm just surprised that you're taking it so well yourself."

"She's a pervert too!"

"Hey!"

"None of that now," the standing officer admonished the nude girls. "Now before we send you on your way, I'll have to ask to see what's in your hand."

"This was an engagement gift from my fiancé," Nabiki explained calmly, showing the police officers the two inch wide sapphire lens.

"Right," The first officer stood up as his partner moved behind the short-haired girl. "Hand it over and place your hands on the table. We don't take kindly to looters in emergency situations."

Nabiki placed the gem on the table and followed the instructions, spreading her legs as the officer behind her tapped her inner heels with the toes of his shoes.

"And I suppose you know the name of this supposed fiancé and how we can contact him?"

"Ranma Saotome," Nabiki supplied readily, hoping to keep the situation under control. "He's not available, but his father is staying at our dojo," Nabiki explained as she tried to think of a way out of this situation.

Thinking it over, the officer behind the desk noted that the girl's answer was prompt and seemed sincere. The other girl was understandably nervous, but that might just be due to the situation they had found themselves in. "We'll have to take you both into custody and hold onto your stone until your story checks out."

Nabiki sighed as her hands were zip-tied behind her back. This was not at all good.

Feeling mortified, Akane followed her sisters lead, respecting the authority of the officers, and hoping that Daddy and Mr. Saotome would be able to clear up the misunderstanding soon. Her blush deepened further as she realized that both officered were cocking an eyebrow as they finally saw what she was wearing.

"Those have got to be the skimpiest panties I've ever seen," stated one officer, shaking his head.

"And you call your sister a pervert," his partner chided.

With both girls wrists secured behind their backs, the lead officer reached for the sapphire lens.

"I wouldn't do that if I were…" Akane stopped as an electric arc shot out of the gem and sent the officer flat on his back.

"Oh, you're in for it now, girly!" The fallen man's partner grabbed the short-haired perp by the hair on the back of her head and introduced her face to the table - hard.

"Ow!"

"Hey! You can't treat my sister like that!" Akane performed a crouching leg-sweep, knocking the legs out from under the man who had just hurt her sister. She then assumed a ready stance suitable for making quick use of her feet.

"A martial artist, huh?" the officer commented as he rolled to his feet, spotting his partner getting back up with his peripheral vision. Drawing his tonfa, he assumed a guarded combat stance of his own and continued: "You think we don't have training to deal with amateurs, girly?"

"I'm _not_ an amateur, you bastard! I'll have you kno-" Akane found herself engaged in direct combat as she dodged one tonfa strike, and then deflected the follow-up strike with a counter kick that sent the man staggering back.

The officer fighting her soon switched tactics from direct attacks, which were proving to be frustratingly ineffective against a slip of a girl who was literally taking him on with _both_ hands behind her back - and _winning_ - to probing feints intended to keep her attention focused on him while his partner lined up a shot with a taser…

_ZAP!_

Akane twitched as she hit the pavement painfully. That had hurt a _lot_, stealing her muscle control away in a way that the zaps from the rock had not.

Before she could recover, one officer had her in a choke-hold, as his partner zip-tied her ankles together, and then zip-tied her ankles to her wrists behind her back to rob her of _any_ leverage she might be able to use to break her bonds. The girl had indeed proven that she was no amateur, and warranted being treated as a threat even while subdued.

Nabiki, dazed and bleeding lightly from her nose, tried to stand straight only to find herself pressed breasts flat onto the table as one of the officers returned his attention to her. "And where do you think _you're_ going, girly? You think it's funny to use a shock-pack on my partner, huh? That's assaulting an officer! You know what's going to happen now, girly? Do you? _Do you!_"

Nabiki and Akane were both scared out of their minds at this point, and each squeaked out in surprise as the table suddenly collapsed under the weight of a quarter ton of blue furred saber-toothed feline. And an instant later, the officer who had been threatening Nabiki found himself batted into the side of the tent, collapsing it and incidentally wrapping himself up into a tangled heap with it as he rolled another fifteen feet further down the street and into another tent.

The officer standing over Akane then found himself face to face with the very large, and obviously hostile saber-toothed cat. Which let out a roar which rattled windows for blocks around. The poor man's eyes rolled up as he collapsed into an unconscious heap.

The surrounding crowd took in this scene in stunned silence for a moment before screaming and general panic set in as everyone tried to put as much space and obstacles between them and the giant, stripe-less, blue tiger as possible.

The two sisters watched wide-eyed as the large blue predator, who was currently, inexplicably, totally feline without even the slightest hint of kangaroo-rat or any other kind of animal, turned his attention to them.

"Ranma?" Nabiki asked nervously, as the big cat started sniffing at her.

**Magical Guardian Ranma's core persona is still off-line. This appears to be an undocumented emergency persona. Please be advised that it seems quite feral.**

"Umm… Nice kitty?" Nabiki greeted the beast hesitantly as it started licking her clean.

O O O

"What channel are you watching, Kasumi?" Soun asked from where he was sitting, with his attention still focused mainly on the Sunday edition of the newspaper.

Kasumi looked up from where she was sitting, and blinked a few times. "The television is still out on the veranda, Father. Don't you remember? It was one of the items that got burned when Akane became a magical girl."

"Then that wasn't a nature show?"

"No, Father."

"Or a Godzilla movie?"

"Now you're being silly!" Kasumi giggled.

Soun actually lowered the paper as he processed this. Suddenly, wide-eyed, he stood up, scattering his forgotten paper, and shouted: "MY BABIES!" Smacking his right fist into the palm of his left hand, he focused his will for a moment.

"Oh my!" Kasumi could only stare in shock as her father's gi vanished, only to be replaced with samurai armor that appeared piecemeal and fastened itself on his strong virile body, complete with a great bow, quiver (with arrows), and a nodachi.

"Don't worry, daughters! Daddy's coming!"

Kasumi finally looked away as her father ran off. Then she looked down at the blue plushy she had been working on and began to sew faster.

"Must make the bad thoughts go away…"

Kasumi blushed as she pondered over the total unfairness of the fact that the first hottie she got to see naked was her own father…

"_Must make the bad thoughts __**go away**__!_"

O O O

"Oh, Genma! You _animal_, you!" Nodoka pulled her husband back down from where he had just sat up.

Genma figured that he'd just have to remember to make sure that the TV was off beforehand next time…

O O O

"This is Yuri Hayabusa, of Nerima Neighborhood News, reporting live from downtown Nerima, where a battle between a tentacled demon and a giant girl made of water wreaked untold devastation only an hour ago. In a bizarre twist on an already bizarre event, police officers and rescue workers are now at an impasse as they are trying to deal with a raiju that appears to be guarding a couple of female bath-house refugees."

Tatewaki and Kodachi Kuno stared at their television in mute shock as the camera panned from the female reporter to cover a huge blue thunder beast that was alternating between indiscriminately licking a pair of indignant girls and snarling at anyone else who tried to get too close.

"What a magnificent beast!" Kodachi continued to stare in awe as the wondrous animal lovingly protected the two girls and showed it's affection by cleaning them.

"That's Akane Tendo! Sasuke, bring me my bokken! I must rescue my beloved from the devil-cat that dares dishonor her maidenhood!"

"Brother dear…"

"Not now, dear sister," Tatewaki began as he turned to face his sister, only to become paralyzed as she blew powder from a bit of folded paper into his face.

"I… hate… you…"

"Oh, don't be like that, dear brother. I just can't stand idly by as you go off to harm that magnificent raiju. Oohohohohohohoho!" Twirling a ribbon and tossing her over clothes aside to reveal her leotard, Kodachi Kuno leapt off to claim her new pet…

O O O

"Well, isn't this precious," Kei chuckled to herself as she observed the raiju guarding the two girls from a nearby rooftop. She had opted to power-up once again after hearing the first roar, but decided to hold off and observe the situation once she reached a good vantage point.

Her gun was floating 'holstered' at her right hip, where she kept her hands well away from it. This was due to the fact that the beast would inexplicably turn it's head to glare at her with a snarl every time her hand got close to her weapon with the thought of shooting the large blue cat. "Definitely shows sign of awareness of hostile intent."

Still, as happy as she was with the predicament the two girls were in, things were definitely not looking good from her point of view as an Agent. The dark blue and chrome armored personnel carrier that belonged to the local news service was a sign that the days of keeping mystical incidents discreet were well and truly over. Not only was this situation inexplicably occurring during daylight hours, counter to generations of nocturnal encounters, the youma that had been involved initially was of a completely unknown type.

Adding to that was a pair of obviously new magical girls (they _had_ to be new if they were still drained enough to be unable to transform at this point - _she_ certainly would have transformed by this point if she was in their position), who were remarkably powerful element-based devil hunters with a guardian raiju and a gemstone advisor.

Kei wished that _she_ had a gemstone advisor. That thing _had_ to be better than Koko, her own perverted ferret advisor. And the guardian raiju was nice too, if obviously not particularly intelligent. Or at least disinclined to show any ability to speak, Kei revised herself, not wishing to make further unwarranted assumptions.

"Woo! So this is the new guy!" a tiny voice squeaked from the edge of the roof. "Nice couple of babes, too - hey! Watch the feet, Kei!" The talking ferret demanded as he dodged away from his partner's stomp.

"You're lucky I stopped shooting at you years ago, Koko. So, what's the deal with the raiju?"

"Well, other than the fact that there isn't supposed to _be_ a raiju involved, word on the vine has it that a boy by the name of Ranma Saotome got tagged by the spirits of some place called Jusenkyo to be a new magical guardian charged to empower an entire team of magical girls."

"That's not a boy."

"Shows what you know. That kitty's as male as they come."

"You know what I mean!"

"Heh… Still, I'm betting that beast _is_ Ranma Saotome. Poor guy's in a bit of a bind as he essentially got saddled with leftover committee scraps as a power-base. There wasn't any direct divine involvement when Jusenkyo pumped it all into him."

"Seems awfully powerful for scraps."

"Scraps of the Gods, Kei. A whole bunch of protocols and themes set aside incase something came down the pike after they stepped further back to allow the people of your world to learn to stand on your own."

"And that explains generational devil-hunter lines, how?"

"Hey, Babe, those were set in place for existing periodic threats. Your line just skipped a few generations, and the fact that you were empowered in America allowed me to update your outfit to the new funky-fresh coolness it is toda-_squeak!_"

Kei shook the struggling ferret in a tight grip. "I _knew_ it! It's _your_ fault I have this hideous eye-sore of a costume!"

Koko opted for the better part of valor and popped out of existence while he was still among the living…

O O O

"Stop it, Ranma!" Nabiki complained as the huge saber-toothed cat started licking her again. "I'm clean enough already!" And oddly enough, she did feel remarkably clean after being tongue-bathed three times by the giant blue fur-ball. Unfortunately, this 'emergency persona' (and just _what_ was the deal with _that_, anyway?) had no sense of propriety. Or privacy for that matter.

Being licked all over her body by a blue furred prehistoric kitty-cat on live TV was going to do wonders for her reputation. She could tell.

Nabiki wondered if she would be taken seriously by _anyone_ after today…

"I just wish Ranma was still smart enough to, oh say… cut these damn zip-ties," Akane grumbled. She wasn't angry with Sensei, as from what she understood this kitty _wasn't_ actually Sensei and was more like… a pet or guard animal or something. One didn't go about blaming animals for behaving like animals after all. That didn't mean she was particularly happy though.

"So his name is Ranma…" Both girls turned their heads to look at the possibly deranged girl wearing a black, rose-print, leotard and twirling a ribbon who had just announced her sudden presence behind them.

Kodachi was nonplussed when the raiju swiftly shifted his position, nearly instantly pinning her ribbon beneath one massive paw and started sniffing her suspiciously.

"Umm… aheh… I have a treat for you?" Kodachi offered a slab of raw steak to the beast, unable to shake the feeling that it was far _far_ more dangerous than she had been inclined to believe at first. Perhaps it had something to do with her actually _being_ next to a great cat tall enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with a horse, as opposed to just seeing it on TV…

The saber-toothed feline happily snapped it up and swallowed it in one gulp. Feeling relieved, Kodachi offered up another slab of meat, which disappeared just as fast.

Kodachi waited expectantly for a few moments, but began to fidget nervously when the great cat failed to show any signs of sudden drowsiness. She became even more nervous when the raiju began sniffing her body intently.

"Oh dear… Umm… I don't have anymore steak on me," Kodachi tried to tell the quite alarmingly large beast.

"He probably smells the meat on you," Akane pointed out helpfully. Then a thought occurred to her: "Say… If you can see a blue stone lying anywhere around here, Ranma might settle down if it touches him."

Nabiki rolled her eyes at this, but figured her sister thought of it as a win-win situation. Either the giant kitty would get absorbed back into the sapphire lens or the lens would zap the girl unconscious, causing Ranma to leave her alone. After all, he had ignored the one cop after he had fainted, and hadn't bothered the man once he woke up and hurriedly crawled away either. For her part, considering their previous experiences with Ranma's token, Nabiki was laying odd that the girl would either be shocked or…

Kodachi spotted the sapphire almost immediately, and carefully moved to follow the advice the one girl had given her. However, as soon as she touched the sapphire, it emitted a flash of blue light, and the gymnast was startled to find her leotard transformed into a mass of loose leaves which swirled into the blue gemstone.

Nabiki stepped towards the now green-haired and green-eyed girl undergo a costuming sequence very similar to her own. Sure enough, the zip-tie that had bound her wrists behind her back turned into a little vine which followed the leaves into the glowing blue stone. She gave the floating girl a gentle shove through the air towards her sister even as a green costume with a leaf theme and sandalwood trim was still 'growing' on the startled recruit.

"Thanks, Nabiki," Akane said gratefully as she uncurled and began stretching out her kinks from having been bound in such an odd position. It was too bad the pervert who had tied her ankles behind her head had woken up and managed to scrabble away earlier, or she's have given the officer a cathartic beat-down at this point.

Nabiki picked up Ranma's token, then carefully climbed onto the back of Ranma himself.

"You two coming or what?"

"Right behind you, Sis!" Akane got onto the back of the giant saber-toothed kitty as well.

"What's going on?" asked a rather confused Kodachi as she joined them.

"Welcome to the team!" Nabiki greeted the girl as Ranma got up and bounded off away from all the noisy pests, taking his charges with him.

"I'm Akane, she's my sister Nabiki, and the big kitty here is her fiancé, Ranma."

"Way to summarize, Akane," Nabiki glanced back at her sister, who stuck her tongue out at her.

"I am Kodachi. I take it that you two are the two magical girls who were mentioned on the news earlier?"

"That would most likely be us, yes," Nabiki confirmed. "We have another teammate in China, and there's another magical girl in the neighborhood somewhere, but she's not with us."

"If I may ask, what happened to your costumes?"

"We overextended out powers. We'll get our outfits back the next time we're able to power-up."

"Where's Ranma taking us, anyway?" Akane wanted to know. "Our house is over that way."

"Who knows. Just about anywhere has to be better than where we were for the past hour or so."

"It would seem that we are heading for the park."

"Ah. Your 'element' then. Say… When we get there, would you mind if I guided you through your new abilities?"

"That would be appreciated, thank you."

"Why would you need to do that, Nabiki?"

"She controls plants. She should be able to make us some clothes."

"I shall endeavor to do my best."

O O O

Kei tried to keep up with the escaping magical girls as best she could while roof-hopping, but the blue great-cat they were riding was too fast, and they were soon out of sight.

Still, her suspicions that the two girls were indeed the ones from the beginning of the incident seemed to be confirmed, given the similarity in designs the costume of the latest one had. She knew that two of their names were Akane and Nabiki, and that the cat was actually a boy named Ranma Saotome. And she knew what they all looked like in _and_ out of costume.

Given that she was no longer able to keep the new team under surveillance, it was now time to head for the Agency and write up her report.

_Sssssssssssshhhhhhfffff_***POP***_thunk!_

Kei blinked as she felt her gun disappear at roughly the same time that an arrow inexplicably buried it's head deep into the metal light pole ahead and across the street from her.

"And just _why_, may I ask, were you chasing my daughters?"

Turning around slowly with her hands raised in what she hoped was a placating manner, Kei found herself confronted by a tall man wearing dark samurai armor as he let go of a large bow, which then floated behind his back as he drew a great blade.

_Oh crap! Angry father! I'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadie! Is that Sephiroth's sword? I'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadie! I. Am. Going. To. Fucking. DIE!_

Kei subconsciously dismissed her costume as she quite literally had no desire to be caught dead wearing it.

She then blinked as the man stiffened up and then keeled over backwards, spurting blood out his nose.

_I'm going to live? Hey, he's a hottie! Aw… No fair! How come _**his**_ normal clothes get to come back while he's unconscious!_

Lowering herself to the fire escape, Kei Murphy decided to put as much distance as possible between herself and the old-line devil hunter as possible before he woke up.

There's an old adage that states that the most dangerous thing in the world is a mother defending her young. Kei wasn't sure if that was true or not, but she suspected that it might apply equally well when it came to fathers and daughters…

O O O

Settling down in the shelter of a small grove of trees, a large blue saber-toothed tiger crouched down to let his charges off of his back. Once all three were on the ground, he turned around, fully intending to greet the new kitten with a thorough tongue bath.

The great blue fuzz ball was taken totally by surprise when Nabiki tapped him on the nose with the sapphire lens.

_Voip!_

"Sorry, Ranma-baby, but I much prefer your other 'self.'"

"Yeah, no kidding," Akane agreed. "T-chan is nice and all, but I'd much rather be dealing with Sensei."

Nabiki looked at her sister oddly and mouthed the word 'T-chan' as she tried to wrap her mind around the concept that her sister found the car-sized prehistoric feline cute.

"So Ranma has more than one manifestation?" Kodachi asked the two nude girls she had rescued. Not that it had been her original intention to do so, but it seemed fortuitous in retrospect as she had become inducted into their team.

"Yeah," Nabiki confirmed, turning her attention to the new girl. "Anyway, I'm Nabiki Tendo, the blue fuzz-ball's fiancée when he's being more intelligent. I drew the water element."

"Hi! I'm Akane Tendo, Warrior of Fire," the long-haired girl supplied, happy to be out of public view once again.

"I am Kodachi Kuno," the green-haired girl replied. She sighed inwardly as she noticed Akane's grin falter slightly at the revelation of her family name.

"Are you related to Tatewaki Kuno?" Akane asked hesitantly.

"Unfortunately, I am indeed your would-be paramour's younger sister."

"He's not anywhere around here, is he?" the long-haired girl asked as she once again tried to cover herself, looking about worriedly.

"You don't have to worry about the great lummox showing up," Kodachi assured the nervous girl. Then she looked down for a moment and started poking her index fingers together shyly.

"So what kept Kuno-baby from showing up to this shindig?" Nabiki prompted.

"I… ah… drugged him and left him on the couch under the care of one of our servants." Kodachi admitted reluctantly, just knowing that she had lost any chance of friendship with her new teammates. Normally, she wouldn't care, but this… this… this was _Special_, with a _capital S _and _everything_! This was something that made her feel _alive_, and _unique_, and _worthwhile _the way rhythmic gymnastics and her family's fortune never really had.

And, once again, as had been the case with every other opportunity for a 'fresh start' she had ever had, it was all going to end before it even began. Kodachi wondered at the fact that she wasn't cackling like a madwoman behind the haughty veneer she used to defend herself from such torment.

Kodachi was surprised to find the subject of her brother's misplaced affection pumping her hands up and down in a western style double handed handshake.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Kodachi blinked.

"Ko-chan," Nabiki started, draping an arm around the new girl's shoulders casually, "this is going to be the start of a _beautiful_ friendship."

The green-haired girl stood stunned at the prospect that she was _actually_ being accepted by her new teammates. They liked her. They _really_ liked her! Even before they knew she was a Kuno, and in fact, despite it once they knew.

Sparkles glinted off of brimming tears of joy as Kodachi's heart soared.

This was going to be _Glorious_!

O O O

**END CHAPTER THREE**

O O O

**OMAKE THEATER PRESENTS:** _Technologically Challenged…_

"This is Yuri Hayabusa, of Nerima Neighborhood News, reporting live from downtown Nerima, where a battle between a tentacled demon and a giant girl made of water wreaked untold devastation only an hour ago. In a bizarre twist on an already bizarre event, police officers and rescue workers are now at an impasse as they are trying to deal with a raiju that appears to be guarding a couple of female bath-house refugees."

Tatewaki and Kodachi Kuno stared at their television in mute shock as the camera panned from the female reporter to cover a huge blue thunder beast that was alternating between indiscriminately licking a pair of indignant girls and snarling at anyone else who tried to get too close.

"What a magnificent beast!" Kodachi continued to stare in awe as the wondrous animal lovingly protected the two girls and showed it's affection by cleaning them.

"That's Akane Tendo! Quick, Sasuke, set up the VCR! I must record this event for posterity!"

"But, Master Kuno! I still haven't figured out how to get the clock to stop flashing 12:00!"

O O O

**OMAKE INFORMATION BOOTH:**

**Odd Fact:** While I have Soun wielding a nodachi (essentially a katana with a _really_ long blade), in canon the melee weapon he is occasionally shown with is a naginata (in which a katana-like blade is affixed to a pole arm) instead.


	4. Chapter 4

_**MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA: BETA EDITION**_

**MGR: Director's Cut**

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Golden Arms

Lord Talon (who probably is irritated for what happens to Kasumi in this chapter)

And some guy named Steve.

DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanfics, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even _gasp_ American comic books!).

TAGS: Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse

Sponsored by Captain Planet and the powers of Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and Ancient Mesoamerican Sacrificial Rituals!

**CHAPTER FOUR:**

In a small grove of trees somewhere in the Nerima district, three girls were dealing with a problem…

Kodachi frowned in frustration as her costume turned to shades of autumn leaves, crumbled, and settled to the ground before swirling back together into her previous attire. With the unfortunate addition of the zip tie straps that had once secured the wrists of her new friends (and the ankles in Akane's case). Unfortunate in that said bonds were somehow laced through her leotard, making it impossible to put back on.

"Well, that's a bust," Nabiki commented as she observed Kodachi's hair darken to its original black and her eyes shift to brown, both of which having been green only moments ago. All around the three nude girls were the scattered results of her attempt to teach Kodachi how to use her plant powers to make clothes. The early results looked nice enough, but were far too stiff and either brittle or just plain inflexible and couldn't be worn. In attempting to correct this, successive attempts gradually became either slightly more flexible, or simply fell apart into a mass of pulpy fibers. The first wouldn't have been _too_ bad, except for one thing…

"I give up," Akane growled as she tossed aside the blouse she had been trying to wear and began to scratch everywhere that the material had touched her skin. "This one _looked_ the nicest, but it _itches_ like crazy!"

"I don't understand it myself," Nabiki responded as she sat cross-legged on a rock. "Akane and I just got our powers yesterday, and it didn't take me very long to figure out how to make stuff out of ice."

Kneeling down, Kodachi picked up the blouse, the latest addition to the pile of failed clothing that she had tried to make for her new friends, and examined it closely. "No stitching or threads in this one either. It looks similar to pressed felt, and has the right shape, but I think that it's still a leaf of some kind. Just one with a very fine mesh of nettles. It doesn't appear to bother me though."

"Yeah, well, Sensei said that we couldn't be hurt by our own powers," Akane admitted grudgingly, perturbed that they would still have to find their way back home, and Nabiki didn't even have that weird little triangle that she and Kodachi still had to preserve even that much of her modesty. "You shouldn't have too much of a problem though."

"Quite," Kodachi agreed as she sorted through her handiwork for a suitable ensemble. "I would imagine, Nabiki, that your success in icecraft may be due to the homogenous nature of your element. While some fabrics originate as plant fibers, such materials can only undergo so much processing before they can no longer be considered to be plants in nature. A bit frustrating, I must admit, even if I can wear _most_ of what I made myself."

"The wood bits look the best," Nabiki gestured at the pile of rigid cups with rounded edges and points. "We could almost do a credible wood cup bikini out of them if it weren't for the thorns showing up on anything that even vaguely resembles usable strings."

"I still don't know why those kept showing up," Kodachi grumbled, picking up one of the wooden bikini sets to examine herself. Oddly, and much like Akane had said, the thorns on the connecting vines did not hurt her in the slightest.

"Probably because you're rather aggressive in nature despite having an affinity for plants," Nabiki guessed, basing this on the fact that their new friend had the nerve to approach a large blue saber-toothed cat with only a rhythmic gymnast's ribbon and a couple of steaks.

"At least you shouldn't have any problems making weapons," Akane pointed out.

"Agreed." Kodachi stood back up and finished getting dressed. "Not the best, but it will have to do. Wait here while I contact my servants and have them pick up some appropriate garments for us. By the way, I assume that you know your sizes?"

O O O

R'hul directed one of the feral youths under his command to refocus the crystal medium until it once again showed coverage of the battle his own scrying had missed.

The very first conclusion he had, from the information he had gathered so far, was that he no longer had the luxury of watching giant monster tales with the volume set as high as it would go. Granted, he hadn't actually been watching them at the time so much as treating them as relaxing background noises as he focused on disguising himself as a human, but the overall effect had been the same. He had let himself get distracted when he should have been watching the operation from the moment he sent his minion out to activate one of the summoning symbols they had been spreading hither and yon.

Fortunately, the humans of this world had developed an intriguing new medium for exchanging stories and information. These crystal boxes, or televisions, were truly fascinating relics. Definitely worth further study once he figured out how to tell the useful bits from the dross.

Fact two was that H'rys had been battling a pair of elementally empowered defenders. Defenders which had proven to be quite willing to inflict mass destruction on their own hive rather than make any attempt to lure an invader to an area where the damage could be kept to a minimum.

It did not escape R'hul's notice that it had been _H'rys_ who had led the battle to a dead spot in the community. The locals had eventually found the spot where H'rys had fallen, a lot used for the common storage of gravel. While the actual end of the battle was not shown, it was apparent from the morass of mud and water that H'rys might have hit on a viable tactic had it not been subsequently attacked by the returning fire warrior.

R'hul tried to wrap his mind around the concept of a fire empowered warrior having more restraint than one empowered with water, wondering just how _that_ unlikely turn of events had happened. Not that the fire warrior had shown all that much restraint either, other than apparently waiting until her partner was down before moving in for the kill.

This was worrisome, and dropped the potential value of using hostages as shields to zero.

Added to this was the troubling reports that the fire based one had been killed, and then not only _respawned_, but apparently recovered enough to actually increase in power. It takes a _lot_ of heat to fuse loose gravel into a glassy shell, while her earlier attacks on H'rys didn't have anywhere near that level of power, or the battle would have been much shorter.

The news about the thunder beast was interesting but largely irrelevant, since it's own actions indicated that neither it nor the young females it had been apparently charged with guarding had been involved with the battle as anything but bystanders.

On the other hand, the revelation of a _power stone_ was handy news indeed, and R'hul was already planning a side project to locate and acquire it. And perhaps the female who had left with it in her possession as well, as her actions showed that she knew how it functioned, even if it was obvious that she couldn't use it herself.

The recently empowered female was most likely empowered by the earth element if the pattern held typical to those of elemental themed empowered champions of previously encountered worlds. Green or brown were common colors for that theme, and the regalia of the new warrior was similar enough in design to the ones worn by her fire and water counterparts to suggest that she would be joining them shortly.

Depending on how often a new warrior could be empowered, R'hul expected that it wouldn't be too long before there was an air-based female as well.

Whether the local humans knew it or not, the young female was important enough to warrant a guardian beast and stewardship of an empowering relic. A princess or priestess of some sort were the most likely possibilities based off of previous examples. Perhaps even a cadet selected for a fast-track to general.

Finding out who she was and what she knew were added to the agenda…

O O O

Kasumi frowned as she looked down at the blue terrycloth plushy she was working on. It wasn't coming out at all like she had envisioned when she started the project. The button eyes were lopsided. The 'nose' was hanging on by a dangling thread. The limbs were all different sizes and placed awkwardly. And the stitching was atrocious.

That last bit was probably the most disappointing aspect, as she was actually rather good at sewing projects normally, and the rest could be explained away from having neither pattern nor model to work from, nor any actual experience in making plush dolls.

It was kind of cute for a first attempt, but otherwise an unqualified failure for what she wanted it for in the first place.

It did not make her feel safe and protected. It did not take away her worries and fears.

And, perhaps the most damning of all, it _did not_ make her forget the image of her father's transformation sequence at the dinner table.

With a sigh, she started picking at the stitching, intending to start over again with the component parts after actually making a pattern and doing a little trimming to even out the mismatched pieces.

"We're home!" Kasumi heard Akane call out from the front entrance.

Kasumi set down her aborted project and got up to meet her sisters at the door, pleased to finally have a distraction. Her youngest sister did not sound upset, so she was looking forward to hearing a recount of their exciting first adventure, with everyone returning safe and sound. Perhaps even with a formulaic life lesson to cap it off.

"Welcome back, everyone," Kasumi greeted the girls as they were removing their… sandals?

For that matter, why were her sisters wearing new, well made, and _fashionable_ garments when she knew darn well that they had left with nothing but old clothing that they wouldn't mind ruining. Instead of any of the outfits that she had helped her sisters pack, they were instead wearing elegant skirt and blouse combinations, much like their new friend. Akane's was more modest, which was to be expected, while Nabiki's was somewhat daring, with a low cut neck and…

Wait… Back up… Almost missed an important detail…

"Hello," Kasumi greeted her sisters' new friend with a brief bow and a pleasant smile. "Welcome to the Tendo Dojo. I'm Kasumi Tendo, Nabiki and Akane's elder sister. Will you be staying for dinner?"

"Why yes, I believe I will," the girl smiled. "I would enjoy that very much indeed. I am Kodachi Kuno."

O O O

Kei finally made it to the local office of the Agency, studiously ignoring the raised eyebrows that accompanied her nude trek through the lobby. She would have stopped at her apartment for a change of clothes first, but the office was closer, she didn't have bus fair anyway, and she certainly didn't feel like walking across town naked or dressed in her horrid day-glow costume. Besides, with the way things were escalating, there really wasn't time for what was (at least in this case) a trivial matter.

While the Mystic Investigations Agency normally handled affairs directly involving devil hunters, with an incident this public the Bureau of Paranormal Phenomena would most likely call in the Department of Supernatural Defense and the Institute of Metaphysical Analysis as well, not to mention the attention this would draw from other interested parties.

And kami help the girls if those nuts currently running the Institute became involved!

O O O

The three Tendo sisters and their guest gathered in the dojo, settling around one of the low folding card tables that had been pulled out of the storage shed for this occasion.

Kasumi had brought a tray with glasses and a pitcher of ice water and some snacks for everyone. She smiled as she divvied them out, anticipating a rousing tale of her sisters' first adventure.

Nabiki waited until everyone had settled before setting Ranma's sapphire lens on the table.

"Ah yes," Kodachi commented airily, "the bauble that gave me my powers."

"Sensei's token is _not_ a bauble!" Akane stated in a huff, interrupting Nabiki as she had been about to speak, unhappy with her new friend's apparent disregard for the item. "And it gave _all_ of us our powers."

"Be that as it may," Nabiki counter-interrupted, hoping to derail the argument before the two could inadvertently alienate each other. "It's time we got some answers. Isn't that right, Help-chan?"

As before, a cyan screen was projected from the lens, orienting itself at one end of the table in such a way as to be easily read by all.

**Do you require my services?**

"Some answers would be nice," Nabiki affirmed.

**Ask then, and I shall provide what answers I may.**

"Are you sure this is safe?" Akane asked Nabiki in what she felt was a quiet aside, but came out more as a stage whisper. While she liked Sensei, and the big kitty was kind of cute once you got used to him, her experience with the _not_-so-helpful advisor had been rather literally 'shocking,' to say the least. Although, in retrospect, the taser the police officers had used on her had hurt far worse…

Before Nabiki could do more than give her little sister a half-lidded stare, a light pulsed from the gem on the table, briefly washing the interior of the dojo with a pale blue glow.

**This room is now secure from any mystical and technological surveillance methods within my abilities to block.**

Akane blinked, a bit surprised that she had inadvertently prompted a useful response from the little tormentor. Maybe it wasn't all bad after all…

"Can you blanket the whole compound with that anti-surveillance field?" Nabiki asked, cocking an eyebrow.

**Blanket coverage of an area including external elements is not advised at this time.**

"It would most likely defeat the discretionary purpose of the field if it was set in an area where it might draw attention to itself," Kodachi concluded, having experience with balancing flash and stealth from her old habit of ambushing members of competing rhythmic gymnastics teams. Knowledge that should place her in good standing within this emerging magical girl team.

"Yeah, flashy does seem to describe most of our abilities so far," Nabiki conceded. "In more ways than one."

"No kidding," Akane groused. "Are we going to end up naked _every_ time we power down?"

**If early observations are indicative, then no. Every reversion incident has left a physical artifact behind.**

"Those skimpy little triangles are _not_ clothes!" Akane yelled vehemently at the screen. And then thought better of it, settling back down in a huff before the magic rock decided to zap her again.

**Incorrect. V-cup briefs are technically clothing.**

"At least we don't seem to care much about it while we're powered up," Nabiki shrugged.

"You don't seem to care anyway," Akane jibed, picking a safer target for her frustration.

"That was purely situational, Akane. How often can I flaunt what I've got without getting in trouble for it?" Nabiki quipped.

"And yet we got in trouble anyway." Akane responded flatly with half-lidded eyes.

"But not for being naked," Nabiki countered with a smirk.

"Now that I think about it, the costume I ended up with leaves rather less to the imagination than even my leotard does," Kodachi interjected, "and yet at the time it didn't even occur to me that I might be bothered by an outfit that fit like it was painted on."

"Technically, if the pattern holds up, our costumes _are_ painted on," Nabiki pointed out helpfully as she took a sip from her glass.

"Your not really helping, Nabiki," Akane griped. "And it's actually worse than that. While we're powered up, we really _don't_ care about nudity. I must have spent half the battle with my left boob hanging out for all to see, and after the battle I set Sensei on your chest because they were convenient pillows! Pillows!"

Kasumi cocked an eyebrow at that. As alarming as that sounded, it did seem to be something that made bad thoughts… go away.

"I don't remember that."

"You were passed out, and I took Sensei off of your boobs after I changed back."

"Why'd you place him on me anyway?"

"He fainted when I pointed out my exposed boob to him."

"And yet you put him on my breasts," Nabiki snorted. "Really thought that one through, didn't you?"

"Argh! I told you I _wasn't_ thinking about that at the time!" Akane huffed, angrily. "It's like the thought _never entered my head_!"

Nabiki raised an eyebrow and commented dryly, "and this is different, how?"

Nodding as she followed her sisters' spat, Kasumi came to a conclusion. Getting a power-up made the bad thoughts go away. And as distracting as this conversation was, she still wanted something to have just that effect, even if the refuge was temporary, or came with its own downsides. Making her decision, the eldest Tendo sister reached over and lightly touched Ranma's sapphire token.

Three girls stared in shock as everything worn by the fourth flashed into incandescent motes of light, along with most of what they themselves had been wearing, which then swirled into ribbons of light which repeated what was becoming a familiar sequence. As the elder girl's costume (which was turning out to be gleaming white with black and gold highlights) was indeed painted on, her skin attained a rich California tan and her hair turned golden blonde. The most striking physical change were her eyes, which now glowed bright yellow and were hard to look at directly. Granted, this just tended to draw the eyes downward to another interesting development.

"That's…" Nabiki paused, not quite sure how she should put this, "some serious underboob you've got there, Kasumi." For the lower hem of her sister's top was a golden band which bisected her bosom just below the nipples, leaving the bottom half completely bare.

"Thank you," Kasumi replied with a serene smile as she settled gently back to the floor and resumed her seat.

Akane's left eye developed a nervous tic as she palmed her face and fought off a blush. "Why'd you do that?"

"Simple," Kasumi commented gently, "I wanted to make the bad thoughts go away."

"Bad thoughts?" Kodachi interjected, noting with some concern that enough of the front portion of the unpowered girls' attire was now missing that the back portion simply fell to the floor, leaving them effectively naked once again. Particularly Nabiki, who for some reason was _not_ wearing what she now knew was called a V-cup…

"Father performed a transformation sequence at the dinner table," the bronze toned girl in white and gold explained. "It was my first look at a naked man outside of a medical journal, and I got a much closer look at Father's penis than I was comfortable with."

Kasumi's sisters face faulted at her blunt language, and all three listeners blushed.

"It's been bothering me all afternoon," the eldest sister continued serenely, as if she had not just referred to the male member without a polite euphemism, "and now it's not bothering me at all." Really, as far as she was concerned, all was right with the world once again.

"Riiiiiiiiiiiight." The sarcasm in Nabiki's voice was thick enough to cut with a knife, but somehow Kasumi still missed it…

O O O

Kei stepped out of the elevator on the third floor, where she and her fellow field agents had a common office. She was once again attired in her skimpy day-glow battle regalia, having summoned it as soon as the elevator doors had closed on the first floor, cutting her off from casual view from the street. She may have hated the costume enough to go nude in public while she had a plausible excuse, but her co-workers and boss knew full well that she could summon her costume more or less at will unless part of it got damaged in combat.

It would be a while before she could call up her spirit gun once again, especially since it was disrupted by another devil hunters spirit weapon. Depending on the relative power levels of the samurai themed hunter's great bow and her hand cannon, it could be anywhere from a few hours to several weeks before her weapon fully repaired itself. In the meantime, she'd have to make due with her enhanced physical abilities.

Abilities that just wouldn't cut it against the new threat. Kei knew when she was outclassed, and anything that could survive being sent completely _through_ a modern building (pipes and structural supports included) relatively unharmed was beyond her capacity to hurt without her spirit gun.

Hell, the one girl had turned the tables on her and knocked her out with shocking ease when she directly confronted the pair in a threatening manner. Not her best moment, that, but she had been pissed over the loss of her precious sports car.

"Looking good, Kei!" leered one of her coworkers as she made her way to her desk.

"Go to hell, Watanabe!" snarled the irate devil hunter as she was rudely reminded that while her abbreviated vest magically fell into place to _sort of_ cover her nipples, it did _not_ compensate for her unrestricted breasts anytime she moved.

O O O

"Okay, let me get this straight," Nabiki summarized after spending a few moments trying to make sense of the reasons behind Kasumi's decision to touch Ranma's token. "The reason that you, our normally straight-laced and proper sister, chose to become a magical girl, _despite the fact that we'd just pointed out that __**none**__ of us seem able to even care about casual nudity beyond the most basic awareness of it whenever we're powered up_, is that you saw Daddy undergo a magical guy transformation into some sort of samurai at the dinner table and you got a really good look at his dick because of it?"

"I really don't know why you're having such a hard time understanding that, Nabiki," Kasumi replied with a slight pout. "It seems perfectly reasonable to me."

"Yeah," Akane huffed, "_now_ it does! Just wait until you power down. You're going to freak!"

"Oh my," Kasumi tilted her head as she thought about it. "I guess I'll just have to avoid that then.'

"Is that even possible?" Kodachi asked. Granted, she knew that she had run out of power, as did Akane and Nabiki before her, but that had been after moderately heavy use. Quirks or no quirks, she happened to like herself better in her empowered state, given that she had finally been able to earn actual friends with it. So what if she became an indifferent nudist as a side effect?

**Maintaining your elemental tier states indefinitely is not possible at this time. The best you could try for is to remain empowered for several days at a time with minimal power use.**

"Damn," Kasumi said the epithet lightly. "I guess I will just have to make do with whatever time I can manage then."

"Oh come on," remarked an annoyed middle sister, "seeing Daddy naked can't have been _that_ disturbing if you've been studying medical journals!"

"I actually agree, Nabiki," the elder girl replied with an eerie calmness. "However, this is while I'm in this state. I remember being quite upset about seeing Father's penis before I touched Ranma's token even though it hardly seems to be of any importance to me right now."

"Must you talk about… _it_… so directly?" Akane complained.

"Yeah," Nabiki agreed, "it's kind of freaky hearing you talk like that."

"The use of euphemisms would be greatly appreciated," Kodachi added.

"If you insist," Kasumi conceded, although she failed to see what the problem was.

"Is Sensei ready to come out yet?" Akane asked in an attempt to change the subject, intending to suggest that they all get dressed before he was summoned out of his magic rock.

**Affirmative. The memory defragmentation and compilation process has been completed and the peripheral avatar has been realigned with Magical Guardian Ranma's core persona as opposed to the apparent emergency persona. Interactive capability has been reestablished.**

"What?" Akane asked in confusion, forgetting her plan abruptly.

"Ranma's ready to come out, Akane," Nabiki clarified in dry amusement.

"I'm not stupid you know," the younger girl pouted contritely, having figured it out just before her sister teased her. "It just took me a moment to get it. So Sensei can come out, but T-chan is sleeping. I get it."

"T-chan?" Kasumi asked, not really getting a clear idea at all, but understanding that Ranma could now join them.

"Large, blue, saber-toothed kitty, bigger than Ranma's gorilla-rat form," Nabiki stated succinctly, not really wanting to dwell on how the giant cat likely ruined any chances of her ever being taken seriously, considering that it had given her then naked body a very thorough (and very public) tongue-bath.

"Perhaps it would be prudent to summon Lord Ranma, so that he may be included in our conversation," Kodachi pointed out. "If I understand what the advisor is implying, he is most likely unaware of his immediate surroundings while he resides in his gemstone."

"All the more reason to let him out then," Akane pointed out, getting ready to stand up so that she could head for her room.

"Agreed," stated Nabiki as she also started to stand, divining her younger sister's intentions. She nodded to Kodachi in silent invitation to join them being fairly sure that, between Akane and herself, they'd find something suitable for their new friend to wear.

Unfortunately, their most recent recruit failed to take any of this into account as she _immediately_ reached over to touch the sapphire lens. A pulse of blue light washed across the room again, eliciting a chorus of "Eeps!" from the other girls as the familiar blue kangaroo rat form appeared, facing them with a smile…

"Hi there! I'm… Erk!"

Nabiki stared down at her dazed, rodent shaped, fiancé as he fell over sideways. Then she stepped up to her sister and bopped her lightly on the top of her head with the palm of her hand.

"What was that for?" Kasumi asked, not really hurt but somewhat confused.

"You broke him," the middle Tendo stated with a half-lidded gaze. "Again."

O O O

Soun sighed as he sat up and dusted himself off, embarrassed that he had let another devil hunter's disempowerment get the better of him.

Kind of reminded him of the first time he met Reiko, before they found out that they were engaged. His late wife always did have trouble maintaining her empowered state. It had always flustered him, just as the appearances of the more feminine demons and youma did. Facts that they had teased each other about often, but had ultimately cost them in the long run, when…

When a female demon took advantage of his embarrassed paralysis and struck down his wife while her powers blinked out one final time.

The she-devil who had defeated Reiko did not live long afterwards to gloat over her brief victory, as Soun's rage overcame his paralysis. In fact, the demon was in three pieces before his beloved had even hit the ground, but by then it was too late.

Far too late.

He retired from devil hunting that night, and never had the heart to tell his daughters what had happened.

Tears flowing freely from his eyes, he stood and summoned his armor once again.

His babies needed him.

He would not fail again!

O O O

R'hul continued listening to the crystal medium unit as it prepared his next report for transmission. He was having the minion who actually lived in the nest he was hiding in retune the relic to whatever herald was reporting any news about H'rys, the empowered defenders, the guardian beast, and/or the females associated with the beast (and therefore the power stone). At the moment, his minion had been able to leave the 'television' tuned to the same heralds' guild for the better part of an hour, so R'hul thought he was making significant progress on the gathering of intelligence. Enough so, in fact, to prepare an actual preliminary report rather than just a request for another probing attack.

R'hul pondered just how to start his report as the oracle cube droned on...

"In related news, one prominent local resident had this to say:"

"Inferno was the first to arrive, and fought well to defend us from the beast," began a man with a tone of awe in his voice. "Alas, she was struck through the heart as her partner arrived, and Tsunami raged to avenge her fallen comrade, her wrath great and terrible to behold in her battle with the beast, and devastation untold was wrecked upon Nerima! And yet, though she lay dead with a signpost through her chest, Inferno blazed anew to rise up more powerful than before, whereupon she reentered the battle and struck down the beast with holy fire! _Inferno lives_!"

R'hul blinked as he turned his head towards the oracle cube. Adversaries with the ability to recover from death could be problematic. That they could do so within the frame of the same battle, and become even more powerful than before was even more so…

O O O

Kei Murphy palmed her face as she listened to the news on her workstation computer.

It was bad enough that the incident had taken place in broad daylight, contrary to every other demon or youma attack in the past half century that she knew of. It was worse that the invading demon didn't match anything out of local myth, resembling something more akin to a horror from a Lovecraft novel than any oni or youma of Japanese, or even Asian legend. So much so that the agency was already calling them C'thulhoids. No, the new hunters were acquiring a cult following.

As soon as the media or any of their more fanatic new fan base or detractors figured out who they were, any semblance of privacy the girls had managed to maintain so far would disappear. Kei sat back as she envisioned the relatively care free days of the agency supplying quiet support to small, discrete devil hunting operations going up in smoke...

She looked up as a man half her size dressed in a black business suit opened the door of the common office. He was carrying a hanger with a set of clothes protected by a transparent bag. Obviously, he had been told she needed a replacement set of civvies when he was called in.

"What have we got, Kei?" the man asked as she hastily stood up and accepted the hanger.

"Trouble, Saito" Kei informed her partner as she quickly put her new outfit on over her costume, which she then dismissed. "Demon incursion of a previously unknown type in broad daylight. Three of what is probably going to end up as a team of five elementally empowered senshi who currently have little or no experience in devil hunting. A pint sized shikagami with Godzilla breath who can expand into a saber toothed tiger as big as a horse. Who is apparently actually a boy by the name of Ranma Saotome, who has some of the worst luck I've ever heard of considering what Koko has been telling me about how he became chosen to receive the 'Scraps of the Gods' or some such nonsense. Local media coverage that is probably going to turn national, or even international, assuming that it hasn't already. And to top it all off, some idiot just practically announced the start of a cult involving them on live TV!"

"Troublesome."

Kei nodded as she sorted through the data she had been gathering. "Anyway, the good news is that Seiji and Danbei have already gone over to the police department and got a copy of the list of bathhouse refugees they had made right before the secondary incident with the raiju. The last two names on the list are of Akane and Nabiki Tendo, whose given names match those I overheard them using just after the initial incident."

"That's odd," Saito remarked. "They gave their names to the police in their empowered state?"

"No, they were normal at the time, and when I overheard them earlier. And yes, I do realize that a change in hair and eye color usually indicates that a glamour hiding their identities is in place, but I didn't have much trouble recognizing them at all. Especially since Akane was still wearing a remnant of her battle regalia. It took a bit more focus of will before I could match Nabiki with her empowered state, but once I did, it was automatic. I'm assuming the difficulty was because Nabiki _wasn't_ wearing a blatant visual cue like her sister. We'll have to warn them about that."

"If you encountered them earlier, why didn't they accept the offer to have the Agency bring them something to wear instead of wandering around to join the bathhouse refugees?"

"I didn't get a chance to tell them about the Agency. The younger one knocked me out!"

"I take it you were normal at the time yourself then?"

"Nope, fully powered and with my gun drawn." Kei's admission caused Seito to raise an eyebrow. He'd personally seen his partner shrug off getting hit in the back of the head with an aluminum bat while in her empowered state. That a 'normal' school girl could knock her out was quite a feat!

"Kei…" the short man started, as he focused on the other part of his partner's statement, "why did you pull your gun on them?"

"The older girl totaled my car during her battle with the youma!"

Saito palmed his face in exasperation…

O O O

Soun was returning home, after finally deciding to check in by phone and being told by his eldest daughter that Akane and Nabiki had returned with a guest, whom he assumed to be the third girl who had rode off with them on Ranma's back.

He was mildly surprised to encounter the Saotomes as he approached the main gates of his family estate. "Genma! And Nodoka! What a pleasant surprise! Come in! Come in! I just got word that Ranma and the girls are back, and I'm sure that they would be pleased to meet you!"

"Thank you," Nodoka bowed as Genma rubbed the back of his head with a silly grin on his face.

"I never did get around to visiting any temples today, Tendo," Genma admitted sheepishly as they made their way to the front door. "I felt that it was a more important matter to bring No-chan into this."

"Indeed, Saotome." Soun nodded, grimly. "The girls do seem to have similar… issues… to those that Reiko and Nodoka suffered through, although a lack of power doesn't seem to be part of it. On the other hand, their luck with the other aspect of it seems to actually be worse."

"Oh dear…" Nodoka blushed, remembering her own misadventures as a devil hunter prior to her retirement.

"I don't see how it could be any worse than what our wives had to go through," Genma protested doubtfully.

"It never happened to them in broad daylight, or in the middle of a large crowd," Soun grumbled.

"Oh my…" Nodoka's blush deepened.

"Well," Genma tried to find a bright spot to this fiasco, "since it was in the middle of the day, at least there wouldn't have been any overenthusiastic rival… devil… hunters…" Genma trailed off at his friend's dour expression. "Or were you about to tell us something, Tendo?"

"We can discuss this all with everyone involved," Soun quickly stated as they made their way through the house and across the covered path connecting the buildings. "Once we prepare the dojo, I'll gather up Ranma and the girls and we can begin."

Opening the door to the dojo, Soun came face to face with four surprised girls, three of whom were naked while the other was wearing the most shockingly revealing costume yet.

"Wow, Tendo!" Genma exclaimed. "Three for three! With _all_ of your daughters able to draw an element from Ranma's token, it must be fate!"

"Why," Soun started hesitantly with a nervous tic, "are three of you naked?"

"Akane and Kodachi are wearing V-cups, Daddy," Nabiki corrected with a smirk, having gotten over her initial shock in a hurry, replacing it with a cheerful façade. "I'm the only one who's actually naked."

"That's not…" the Tendo patriarch shook his head and then glared at the girls, causing all but Kasumi to flinch and take an involuntary step back. His eldest daughter just observed the unfolding events with an air of serenity, apparently unaffected. "You know what? Never mind, I can guess what has happened. I take it that the blue lump on the table in there is actually Ranma and not the plushy Kasumi was working on earlier?"

"Er… yes…" Nabiki replied, a little put off that she hadn't been able to bluff her way past her father with sheer brazen attitude.

"Then just turn around and march right back into the dojo," Soun commanded. "You too, Kasumi, and dismiss your powers while you're at it."

"But we were about to get dressed!" Akane blurted out, rallying to try to bull through parental disaproval where Nabiki's bravado had failed.

"Oh, my!" decried Kasumi, who had reverted to her base state, leaving her wearing just her V-cup and a blush that encompassed much of her body.

"Er…" Nabiki tried to regain her shattered composure once again.

"NOW!" Soun shouted, manifesting an apparent demon head of enormous size, promptly causing the four girls to scurry back into the dojo like frightened rabbits!

Genma and Nodoka shared a glance, and then started to turn to head back into the house proper.

"Oh no you don't," Soun called them back, his mere glance enough to cause them to shudder momentarily. "If I have to deal with this, I want both of you present to back me up!"

"Sure thing, Tendo," Genma chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his head as he passed his friend and entered the dojo, followed by his wife who had already resumed her core of quiet dignity.

Taking a moment to calm himself and gather his thoughts, Soun sighed and finally stepped into the dojo himself.

"I know this may seem abrupt and somewhat arbitrary," the Tendo patriarch began, "but several things have come to light today that must be dealt with. The Saotomes can confirm much of what I have to say, and will provide their own insight as well. You will be told much tonight, about the history of our clans, why it was deemed to be so important to try to merge four fading devil hunter lines together, and what really happened the night your mother died…"

"And…" Soon closed his eyes for a moment before giving the girls a hard stare. "As much as it pains me as a father to have to do this, I have been reminded of a serious and potentially fatal flaw that absolutely must be dealt with immediately! Starting tonight, there will be some new rules to follow that I expect each of you to follow strictly! They are for your own good, are to be considered part of your new training regimen, and just may save your lives someday!"

"Okay," Nabiki replied levelly, "I can see where we'd benefit from the voice of experience, Daddy, but why all the drama? It's just training, and we need it - it's not like we can turn it down."

"Well, for one thing," Soun stated with a huff, "You cannot afford to have Ranma freezing up on you in the middle of battle due to wardrobe malfunctions or the appearance of some of the more feminine demons and youma. He must be desensitized, and so your wardrobe at home will be severely limited from now on."

All four girls stared at him in shock…

O O O

Tatewaki Kuno rolled his shoulders to work out the kinks as he recovered from the dose of paralysis powder his twisted sister had inflicted upon him. He had just spent the past few hours forced to sit still on the couch, unable to even turn his head back to the television without aid.

Fortunately, Sasuke had repositioned his head appropriately to correct this misfortune, so he had been able to watch the reports as events unfolded.

The fact that his sister had just joined this new sentai team was hardly surprising. She was a Kuno after all, and the role of an empowered defender was an auspicious one worthy of her status. The plant theme seemed to suit her, and it spoke well of her that she had rescued his beloved tigress, Akane, and her mercenary sister, Nabiki, as soon as she received her powers. Even less surprising, and somewhat aggravating, was the fact that she had performed her transformation sequence on television. Her nude, _uncensored_, transformation, on a live broadcast!

Granted, NNN had apparently decided to exercise a minimum of visual censorship, keeping only the forward nether regions pixilated, and then only if need be. Nabiki's loin had been blocked out, indicating that it was indeed bare, but Akane had been wearing a most intriguing stringless brief.

A stringless brief that he had recognized from amateur footage shown previously to have been part of the painted on bicycle shorts of the senshi, Inferno. Sure, the hair and eye colors were different from those of his beloved tigress, but the hair was the same length and style, and her fighting form, if accelerated, was recognizable. Even the face remained otherwise unchanged, even though he had to really focus on the matter before the realization of this particular fact became clear to him. Once it was, he could not see how he had missed it.

His goddess, the passionate tigress, Akane Tendo, was the fiery warrior, Inferno!

Now if only he could tell who Tsunami was. Who did he know whose face and hair matched those of the tumultuous Tsunami?

As Kuno pondered this, he watched as the news once again showed footage of the raiju, and was amused to note that they had once again selected one of the scenes of a frustrated Nabiki being licked clean by the great blue cat. The odd colored prehistoric feline seemed to belong to her, and he wondered how that came to pass.

And Kuno utterly failed to make the connection…

O O O

END CHAPTER FOUR

O O O

OMAKE THEATER PRESENTS: Not quite the way it happened…

Soun sighed as he sat up and dusted himself off, embarrassed that he had let another devil hunter's disempowerment get the better of him.

Kind of reminded him of the first time he met Reiko, before they found out that they were engaged. His late wife always did have trouble maintaining her empowered state. It had always flustered him, just as the appearances of the more feminine demons and youma did. Facts that they had teased each other about often, but had ultimately cost them in the long run, when…

Reiko's powers flickered out during a battle with a paparazzi themed youma, who took advantage of Soun's momentary paralysis to snap several pictures of his wife before running off.

A month later, after Reiko's nude image had been spread like a virus to every sleazy tabloid imaginable, she swore eternal vengeance and marched straight out the front gate, never to be seen again…

END OMAKE THEATER


	5. Chapter 5

_**MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA: BETA EDITION**_

**MGR: Director's Cut**

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Lord Talon

And some guy named Steve.

DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanfics, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even _gasp_ American comic books!).

TAGS: Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse

Brought to you by Azeroth & Metrion, the producers of ZYNTHOS: The Hex Maker!

**CHAPTER FIVE:**

R'hul pondered the situation he found himself in and decided that he had a few options at this point, given the information he had accumulated so far:

First: He could report what he had found so far and simply turn the operation over to someone more experienced. Which was _very_ tempting, considering the apparent power levels and durability of at least two of the local empowered defenders. However, this was the first mission R'hul had been assigned where he had been granted the option of earning a promotion, and if he backed out at the first sign of serious opposition, who knew when the opportunity would come up again?

Second: He could report what he found so far and request mission command status. Which would definitely be an automatic promotion, albeit a risky one as he would have a limited time to prove himself or he would become the main course of the welcoming dinner of whoever was selected to replace him if he failed. High stakes indeed, but he'd be able to requisition whatever support he thought the mission required.

Third: He could gather more data, conduct some experiments, and occasionally summon from the support pool he was already cleared for. The stakes were lower, and the chances of promotion weren't quite as good, but he could always switch to one of the other options once he had enough information.

Tsunami and Inferno were too dangerous to mess with at the moment, but the young queenling, Nabiki of Tendo, with her guardian beast, warrior sister, and empowering stone seemed to be the ideal choice for opening foci for some experimental enchantments…

R'hul addressed the minion who resided at his current hideout, "Gather your packmates and bring them here. I would like to know everything you can collectively tell me about the queenling, Nabiki of Tendo, her sister, Akane of Tendo, and Kodachi of Kuno…"

O O O

"How limited are we talking about here?" Nabiki inquired as she considered Daddy's announcement. "Racy swimsuits? Skimpy French maid outfits? Playbunny suits? Aprons over itsy bitsy bikini briefs?"

"Ahem," Soun interrupted his middle daughter, one brow twitching at her blasé attitude towards the whole affair. "Perhaps to start with. Not likely. Certainly not! And… well… now that I think about it, that last one probably _will_ come into play after a fashion."

"Yes," Nodoka agreed, "an apron would still be a necessity in the kitchen, especially if your father is implementing the training regimen that I think he is."

"Tendo," Genma protested, "surely you don't mean…"

"I do indeed, Saotome," Soun confirmed. "The very same training regimen our dread master came up with for our wives way back when the problem first became apparent. We rejected it then, but if we had adopted it, perhaps… perhaps…"

"Perhaps what?" Akane demanded, arms crossed over her chest, irritated and more than a little embarrassed to be stuck wearing only her tiny red V-cup brief in the dojo with two adult males present.

"Perhaps your mother would be alive today!" Soun snapped back with a sharp glare, eliciting an 'eep' from his youngest daughter.

"What are you talking about?" Nabiki inquired carefully, a little annoyed that her younger sister had suddenly elected to hide behind her.

"We, Genma, Nodoka, your mother, and I, had all been devil hunters ourselves when we were younger," Soun explained. "I'll get into the history of it all over the course of your training, but the part that concerns us now is that… well…"

"What Soun is trying to say," Genma interrupted bluntly, "is that Nodoka and Reiko had difficulties maintaining their powers, causing their battle costumes to flicker out and in again or to vanish altogether during missions. And Reiko never was able to get her original clothes back, even when her powers _were_ working correctly."

"Your father used to freeze up momentarily whenever this happened to your mother," Nodoka continued. "Reiko and I thought it was kind of cute at the time, but we failed to realize just how much of a risk this situation put us in whenever we were out hunting youma."

"Your mother died because I froze up when her powers faded at a vital moment on our last mission," Soun admitted, voice heavy with grief. "I killed the youma that took her life, but still… if I hadn't froze up in the first place… or if Reiko had actually dodged instead of reflexively trying to cover herself…"

"So it's not just Ranma that this training is supposed to desensitize then," Nabiki concluded.

"Correct," Soun nodded. "We already know you girls have no qualms about being naked _while_ you are empowered, but each of you _must_ get used to being nude while you are your normal selves as well. This is absolutely essential so that none of you will freeze up whenever you revert to normal while out in the open. Trust me, it _will_ happen again at some point. Possibly even with disturbing frequency or magnitude, although I do hope today's example proves to be an exception rather than the rule for you girls."

"I hope so too," Akane agreed, wide eyed and blushing furiously as she remembered the public humiliation she experienced earlier.

"Yeah, let's go with that," Nabiki remarked dryly, earning a quizzical look from her team mates. "What? You saw the other girl, Akane. Every example of a magical girl we've either met or been told about so far ends up naked in public, or damn well near enough to public as to make little difference. I hate to admit it, but Daddy has a good point here so far."

"Yes," Soun nodded, acknowledging Nabiki's support. "We will, however, deviate from the dread master's original idea and restrict it to only while in this compound."

"The girls should also follow the regimen whenever they are on our property as well," Nodoka added. "Having another location to do so should prove beneficial."

"I concede the merit of this training regimen," Kodachi put in, "and will impose the same restrictions for the Kuno estate." She was no stranger to unusual training techniques, considering that she practiced Rhythmic Gymnastics Martial Arts, an already unusual fighting style, with her own creative flair on top of that. This, quite frankly, was just one more such method. And, sad to say, probably not the strangest thing she had ever done for the sake of training.

"No offence, Kodachi, but I don't want your brother to see me naked."

"I see your point, Akane, but it is already moot."

"Eh?" Akane stared at her new friend.

"How else did you think I knew enough to bring steaks when we first met? Your plight was broadcast live on television as breaking news."

Akane blinked as she absorbed this fact. Then screamed in denial. "Noooooooooooo!"

"Who! What! When! Where!" the azure lump on the low card table they were all gathered around suddenly stood up, and the large kangaroo rat looked around rapidly for whatever the trouble was before realizing that there wasn't actually an immediate threat. Then he noticed that the girls were still naked. "Erk!"

"And Ranma falls again," Nabiki quipped dryly as the magical mascot fainted.

"Oh my!" Kasumi blushed deeply. Again.

"You only just now figured that out?" Nabiki asked, returning her attention to her younger sister, arching an eyebrow as she did so. Did Akane not see the Nerima Neighborhood News APC, or all the people with personal camcorders?

"Perhaps we should ease into this," Soun commented, not insensitive to his daughters' plight. "Give Ranma and the girls some time to adjust to the idea first?"

"Yeah! Let's do that," Akane aproved, nodding vigorously. "We can do the swimsuits first…"

"Actually, Tendo," Genma interjected over his friend's youngest daughter, "For this sort of thing, I believe it would be better to go straight in all the way from the start. Get the shock of it all over with more quickly rather than prolonging it more than necessary."

"I agree," Nodoka put in. "Nothing at all while inside, and nothing on the torso proper while still on the properties, with exceptions only for wearing an apron when cooking. Any time they need to go out in public, they will dress by the main gate just prior to leaving, and promptly disrobing after returning."

"What about Daddy's scheduled martial arts classes," Nabiki asked, "or when we have visitors?"

"There will be no exceptions," Nodoka stated firmly.

"Oh my…" Kasumi's blush, having faded somewhat as she gradually got used to being naked in the first place, returned in full force.

"Ack!" Akane responded with all the eloquence she could muster.

Kodachi simply nodded as if expecting such a draconian measure from a female authority figure. Which, indeed, she did suspect something like this would be the case as soon as the possibility was mentioned. When you practiced an unusual style, it was to be assumed that the regimens involved would be at least equally strange, if not outright bizarre. And this _still_ wasn't the strangest thing she had ever done for the sake of training...

"Nodoka, please…" Soun interrupted before his friends wife could further traumatize his precious girls, "This is my house, and they are my daughters. We will ease into this so everyone has time to get used to the idea first. The swimsuits first, starting with whatever they own now, but some time this week we'll be going out and getting each of you something more risqué to wear instead, and before the month is out, each of you _will_ be following the regimen that Nodoka has brought up. By then, we'll have your training schedules set up so as not to overlap with my class sessions. Hopefully, that stage will last for only have to last a week or so anyway, but it _will_ continue until Ranma and you have all acclimated sufficiently enough to lay are worries to rest. Understood?"

"Yes, Father," Kasumi sighed in resignation.

"I guess so," Akane huffed in irritation.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Nabiki commented, fully expecting her Father to back out of the whole idea well before they got to this point again. In the mean time, she made a mental note to check her film reserves, as scantily clad photos of Akane should sell pretty well…

"When you girls _do_ reach the final stage of your training," Nodoka began, "we will be sorting through your clothing and selecting a _small_ number of outfits that you will be allowed to keep until your training is complete. Everything else _will_ be packed away for my husband to hide. Aprons will be in a kitchen drawer, shoes and socks will be stored near the front door, and everything else you are permitted to keep during your training will be kept by the main gate."

"We don't have any storage unit by the main gate, Mrs. Saotome," Akane pointed out.

"Call me 'Aunty', dear. And that goes for the rest of you as well. But to the point, I'll have my husband pick up an armoire and a hamper before you begin that portion of your training," Nodoka countered. "And if anything happens to the armoire, then you'll just have to make due by hanging some lines up near the gate."

"Should I do the same, Aunty?" Kodachi asked, just to be clear on this point. She could go either way, really, but with this level of commitment on top of her brother's presence, she doubted that Akane would ever be willing to visit her home if she did.

"It would probably be wise," Nodoka agreed. "Although, if the training does end up lasting more than a couple of weeks, I would suggest discontinuing the practice at your home. You girls will need _some_ place to be able to decompress and get away from these rules, if only for a day or two out of the week."

"You aren't going to be naked too, are you Father?" Kasumi asked hesitantly. "because if you are, I'm afraid that I must insist on moving out…"

"Er…" Soun's left brow twitched as he realized the implications of the rules being laid out, and his eldest daughter's ultimatum. Quickly realizing that if he didn't clear this up, Nodoka would come up with something possibly even more disconcerting instead, he spoke. "No, of course not. This training is only for your team. We adults shall remain clothed if it makes you that uncomfortable - no need for anyone to move out? Right? Right?

"Thank the kami," Kasumi muttered under her breath before speaking up. "That is agreeable, Father."

"I can deal with that," Nabiki shrugged. Personally, she felt that letting the adults out of the new house rules was being hypocritical, but since it was a concession to Kasumi and not _just_ so the adults could stay dressed, she let it slide.

"I'm not really happy with any of this," Akane fumed, "but I guess I'll go along with it since the rest of the team is. Our friends won't have to get naked if they come over, will they?" Not that she was _planning_ on inviting anyone but Kodachi over while this was going on, but you never knew when anyone might decide to drop by unannounced.

"Of course-"

"NOT!" Soun interrupted Nodoka before the woman could further distress his daughters. He had just wanted her in here with him and Genma as a voice of experience, not so that the woman could traumatize his little girls more than absolutely necessary. "That will be left up to them."

"But…" Nodoka tried interjecting again.

"Optional!" Soun insisted vehemently, trying to salvage at least _some_ dignity for his daughters.

"Very well," Nodoka conceded with a shrug. She had meant to suggest that guests remained properly attired since Soun, Genma, and herself had to, but if Soun was going to turn his home into a clothing optional compound, she supposed it didn't really matter.

"Ranma will also follow this training once he's human again," Genma put in sagely.

"**What!**" Akane shrieked. "Why does Sensei have to do this too!"

Kodachi blushed at the thought of seeing a young man in such an unclad state.

"He's part of the team too, you know," Genma pointed out. "Fair's fair. And besides, you'll all need to get used to his natural form as well, when the time comes."

"That's fine," Kasumi agreed readily. After all, by that time, Ranma would have seen them naked for who knows how long. It's not like it could be any more embarrassing to her than it already was, despite her youngest sister's protests. Besides, then she'd get to see a naked guy up close who _wasn't_ her father.

Nabiki looked at her older sister suspiciously and poked her in the shoulder. "_My_ fiancé!"

"Now how fair is that?" Kasumi pouted lightly, drawing surprised looks from everyone else and causing Nabiki to pick up Ranma and hug the largish blue kangaroo rat to her bosom protectively.

"_**Mine!**_" the middle sister insisted. "Stop trying to break my boyfriend!"

Nodoka beamed with only one thought on her mind at this point: _Grandbabies!_

O O O

"Summon your advisor, Kei," Seito instructed his partner.

"Why would I want to do that?" Kei asked irritably, still miffed at Koko's recent admission that Koko had designed her battle regalia to look like it did on purpose.

"Because he's one of only two entities that we have easy access to that is known to supply reasonably reliable information on spirit realm happenings."

"He's defective and a pervert. Who's the other one? Got to be better than dealing with Koko…"

"Babo," the short man replied. "And you probably don't want to deal with him."

"Why not?"

"Because Koko can be paid with chicken nuggets whenever it's convenient, but Babo will want to be paid with hard cash _and_ 'puff-puff' before he'll answer any questions."

"Koko it is then," Kei conceded, acknowledging her partner's point that she'd rather not rub her bare bosom against some strange entity in exchange for anything unless she really had to. Koko was a known, or at least mostly known, factor.

"Awww…" pouted a guy a few desks over. "I wanted to see the puff-puff!"

"Go. To. _Hell._ Watenabi!" Kei ground out.

O O O

R'hul guided the image in his mirror, with some guidance from his minions, until it overlooked the walled compound that comprised the Tendo warrior crèche. This neatly bypassed the main difficulty of using scrying without being intimately familiar with the subjects in question or otherwise having a way to focus quickly on them, which was not knowing where to direct his scrying. In most worlds, it wasn't really much of an issue, as communities rarely got large enough to discourage manually directing the scry until the target was found. On this world, this particular hive alone was so huge that it may have taken R'hul _years_ to search in such a manner before producing the desired results!

And that was even taking into consideration that he was actually using the innovation of having the viewpoint search from overhead, as seamed to be the preferred method of the _local_ heralds and bards. At least as depicted by the viewing box relics that they used to impart news and entertainment to the masses.

In any event, the overhead view revealed that the compound had three buildings: a main residence, a storage shed, and what was presumably the training hall. Presumably because it was actually _shielded_ from scrying. Not terribly surprising considering that the queenling _did_ have an empowering stone and a guardian beast. Both of which probably being located in that particular building.

Which, unfortunately, put it on R'hul's avoid at all costs list until he figured out a way past the guardian beast.

Hello…

"Oh, cool!"

"That's Akane! Awesome!"

"Wait… I thought she'd be bigger than that. I mean… look at Nabiki!"

"Eh, Kasumi's are even bigger. They'll grow into them."

"Who's Kasumi? Ow! Why'd you hit me!"

"She's their oldest sister, moron! She graduated last year, don't you remember?"

"Then that must be Kodachi."

"Who?"

"Do you want me to smack you again?"

R'hul paid only partial attention to his minions' antics as he observed seven humans leave the structure in question. Noticing that his main target, the queenling, was carrying a much smaller version of the guardian beast just confirmed that the larger one did indeed reside in the shielded structure. Probably a related creature of some sort, given the similarity in hues to the larger, more feline monstrosity, and unlikely to be affected by any geasa R'hul could cast, as guardian beasts were effectively _already_ under strictures of some other power that assigned them to be guardians in the first place.

"Since you lot are being talkative," R'hul began, "would any of you mind identifying the three adults as well?"

"Um… I dunno… Their parents?"

"You dope! That one is Mr. Tendo, their father. And I think the lady is their mom…"

"Then why is she hanging off the other guy's arm?"

"Kinky threesome? Ow! Stop that!"

"Then stop being stupid! Those two have gotta be Kodachi's folks."

"Why are the girls naked?"

"You complaining?"

"Hell no! I just want to know!"

"I wonder if they're gonna come to school like that?"

"Hah! We should be so lucky! Not gonna happen."

"Actually," R'hul interjected, coming up with the beginnings of a plan, "I _may_ be able to make that happen. I would need some help though…"

"COOL!"

"What do you need us to do?" R'hul's chief minion asked.

"Well, you see the four corners of their parameter wall?" R'hul began, as he outlined his scheme. To be honest, this was more to fortify his hold over his minions and encourage them to help more on their own volition, since, despite his current appearance, naked rock monkeys weren't his thing. Still, his first group of minions happened to be young feral males, loaded with newly developed hormones, so any plans they came up with were likely to fall along certain themes anyway. Might as well work with it…

O O O

Now that everyone had relocated from the dojo to the house, and the girls had gone up to their rooms to put on their swimsuits and select a suitable spare for Kodachi to wear, Soun, Genma, Nodoka, and Ranma gathered in the family room.

"Oops," Genma uttered, eying the large, burnt hole in the floor. "I forgot to stop anywhere for lumber, Tendo." The large, weathered man in the off white gi chuckled weakly as he rubbed the back of his head, abashed at his mistake.

"Don't sweat it, Pops," Ranma piped in. "Got'cha covered now!" And with that, the largish kangaroo rat's fur shifted from it's normal azure hue to one of leaf green. In moments, some sort of seedling sprouted from the charred ground below, growing to a height level with the floor, and then spreading out and folding over itself repeatedly until the gap was filled with a tightly knit lattice of wood-like material woven in a similar manner to common Celtic designs.

Genma knelt down and ran his hands over the new surface. "Very nice, Ranma! It's so smooth I can barely feel the seems!"

"Sturdy enough to hold a lot of weight too," Ranma commented. "I left the root in place as a new support post."

"It's not going to grow anymore, is it?" Soun asked, a bit worriedly.

"Um… Actually yes," Ranma admitted. 'It's going to extend a root out to the edge of the house and form a short hedge so it can get sunlight. Other than that, it's going to help support the house. Once it under grows the whole thing, it'll even keep pests out as long as it's taken care of."

"I would be honored to do so," Soun stated agreeably, seeing the benefits to both the plant and his home. "I'll let my daughters know too."

"That was very thoughtful, Ranma," Nodoka smiled at her son's generosity.

"Ah… Thanks?"

"You… You don't remember me?"

"Er… should I?"

"Genma!" Nodoka shrieked as she attempted to hit her rapidly retreating husband with her wrapped katana. "How is it that our son cannot even recognize his own mother! I know you had photos of me when you left!"

Watching the strange woman chaise his father out into the yard and around the house, the largish blue magic kangaroo rat looked up at the father of three of his charges. "That's… my mom?"

"Yes, Ranma," Soun sighed in response. "Yes she is."

"I like her already…"

O O O

It was late in the evening, just at the cusp of twilight when the first stars were becoming visible despite the low ambient glow of the community's lights, about an hour or so after they had seen a long black conveyance of some sort pick up a young female human and leave, followed shortly thereafter by two adult humans leaving on foot and heading off in a slightly different direction.

Four teenage boys looked about briefly, before separating and quickly approaching their assigned corner of the wall surrounding the Tendo property. Actually etching the symbols their master had shown them took more time than spray painting their sign did, but not overly so since the symbols didn't have to be particularly large nor noticeable. In fact, they went out of their way to place them where they wouldn't immediately catch anyone's attention.

As each one finished, they used their etching tools to make a small cut on the thumb of their off hands and smeared a little blood on the symbols they had just made. Then they regrouped, aimed a flashlight skyward, turning it on and waving it in a circle-cross-circle pattern once before turning it off again and leaving.

Truth be told, now that R'hul didn't look so horrific, most of them were starting to actually enjoy the intrigue of being cultists. Sure, they didn't really have any say about actually _being_ R'hul's minions, but then again, they never really put much thought to their futures beyond whatever fun or mayhem they were trying to cause anyway. At least this way, they had a chance to bring certain fantasies propagated by special films, niche anime, and raging teenage hormones to life!

The fact that what they were doing was rather unambiguously evil never even entered any of their heads…

O O O

Ranma blinked as a wave of… something… passed over the dojo. Whatever it was, it made him twitchy and uncomfortable, but unsure if anything was really going on. Kodachi had gone home shortly after dinner, having been picked up by a limo of all things, and his parents had left not too long afterwards, possibly due to the big awkward silence that had dominated what should have been his reunion with his mother.

Hopefully, when his mother came back tomorrow, things would be a little less strained between them despite Ranma's having become the cute mascot of a magical girl team.

Ranma started patrolling the Tendo estate, investigating just about every nook and cranny of the property he could think of. It was odd, considering that he wasn't sure why the waves seemed to actually calm him while making him suspicious at the same time. He _almost_ decided to extent his patrols into the immediate neighborhood several times, but put off doing so in order to remain closer to his charges.

Kodachi seemed to be able to take care of herself, and Shampoo was far enough abroad to be a non-issue, but Nabiki had basic combat abilities at best (if any), while Kasumi was about as noncombatant as a member of a martial arts family could get.

He'd have to fix that if the team wanted their field medic to… oh say… actually come out onto the field with them. Kasumi should at least learn some dodging and evasion, and perhaps a little light combat for self defense.

Nabiki would be learning more, naturally, as the current field leader and his 'chosen' warrior, but even she would be hard pressed to keep up with the enthusiasm their youngest sister had for the art. While not up to Shampoo's standards _yet_, Ranma expected Akane to outstrip the Amazon before too long considering her attitude and willingness to take instruction from him. She'd probably remain a point fighter for some time, first to engage simply due to the speed her element gave her, so getting her used to that speed and improving her agility were the first priorities with her.

He'd have to find out more about Kodachi's fighting style later, and see how it could be worked with or modified to suit her role on the team, whatever it turned out to be. Combat support or battlefield manipulation seemed to be likely with her control over plants. He'd have to see how creative she could get with that power.

And they'd _all_ have to work on their magical stamina. The first squid-faced youma had almost outlasted Sparky and Squirt, and Ranma suspected that encounters with future enemies would only get worse from there.

The waves finally stopped, and after a while, the odd feeling went away as well, so the largish blue kangaroo rat decided that it was probably nothing after all. Ranma returned to the dojo and touched the stone, pretty sure that one of the girls would get him out in the morning…

O O O

Akane yawned as she sat up in her bed, before reaching over to her nightstand to shut off her alarm clock. Doing a few light warm-up stretches, the then pulled on a pair of socks before going downstairs to the foyer, where she put on her red running shoes and then headed out for her morning jog.

The fact that she wasn't wearing anything else at all didn't even register as being even the least bit important to her, despite the fact that she was perfectly aware that she was otherwise completely nude…

O O O

Nabiki groggily listened to Kasumi pleasantly humming to herself as the elder girl prepared breakfast, wearing nothing other than her house slippers and an apron. Nabiki herself wore nothing but a pair of socks, which somehow didn't strike either girl as being the least bit strange. Nor did it occur to either of them to go to the dojo to summon Ranma out of his token for the day.

Soun, although actually dressed in one of his dark gi sets as was his usual custom, also utterly failed to consciously register that his daughters casual nudity and acceptance of it were _not_ facts that he would normally be comfortable with. He just sat at his spot at the table and enjoyed a cigarette along with his coffee as his middle daughter sat at joined him at the table with her own cup.

"I'm back!" Akane yelled from the foyer as she removed her shoes before entering the house proper.

"You have just enough time to wash up before breakfast is ready, Akane," Kasumi called from the kitchen.

In short order, the Tendo family sat together for breakfast, one fully clothed, two wearing socks and nothing else, and one with just house slippers (having put her apron away when she had finished preparing their meal).

"Did you enjoy your jog this morning, Akane?" Kasumi asked politely.

"I guess so," Akane shrugged. "A few of the people I sometimes see during my jogs seemed to be surprised to see me naked at first, but they just nodded once I told them that Daddy initiated special training for each of us, and that being nude was a requirement for it."

"Yeah, well, there are enough unusual family specific arts in Nerima with their own quirks," Nabiki commented with a shrug. "As long as you didn't admit that we're all secretly magical girls or anything like that, I don't think a dress code is going to bother them."

"I didn't say a word about that," Akane huffed.

"Then we should be golden, Akane," the middle sister chided. "Relax a bit."

After the girls stood up from breakfast, Kasumi approached Nabiki from behind, reached around her sister's torso under her arms, and began to massage her breasts. "I think we need some new photos for the family album," she murmered playfully into an ear. "I don't think you should be selling the extras this time though."

"And just what should I do with the extras?" Nabiki giggled, enjoying the feel of her boobs being fondled and squeezed for a few moments before pulling herself free. "Give them away for free?"

"I don't see why not," Kasumi suggested.

"You're cutting into my profit margin," Nabiki huffed, "but alright. I guess I can distribute a batch for free, since these will be the first nude pics of any of us. Special advertisement and all…"

"I'd rather you not sell any pictures of me at all," Akane groused. "I have enough problems with the morning fights without you adding fuel to their little obsession."

"So you don't mind me giving pictures of you away, just so long as I don't charge for them?"

Akane thought for a moment before replying. "Yeah… that sounds about right."

"Father, sisters?" Kasumi piped up to get everyone's attention.

"Yes, Kasumi?" Soun looked at his eldest daughter even as his two younger daughters did the same.

"Since Akane, Nabiki, and I are no longer wearing clothes, I'm going to go through our things while they are at school and bundle up everything but our socks and accessories for disposal. Father, when I'm done, I'd apreciate it if you took it all to one of the empty lots and burned it. Is that all right with everyone?"

"I don't have a problem with it," Akane stated with a shrug.

"I'd rather Daddy sold it, but if you want it destroyed I guess that's okay too," Nabiki commented dryly.

"I would rather they be burned, Nabiki," Kasumi admonished her sister. Poking Nabiki in her left nipple, she continued sternly. "If Father chooses to sell anything, it would be more appropriate to sell everything _else_ in your room. He could then donate the money to the relief fund to help make up for all the damage you caused yesterday."

"Ah… er…" Nabiki started to protest, then looked down with sagging shoulders. "I guess I deserve it."

Kasimi raised her hand from Nabiki's boob and lifter her sister's chin. "It will be okay, you'll see." She then drew her sister into a hug, squishing their bare bosoms together and giving her a deep sisterly kiss on the lips. With tongue.

"I'll help too!" Akane interjected as her older sisters separated.

"That's great, Akane," Kasumi congratulated her youngest sister, drawing her into her own hug, differing from Nabiki's only in the fact that her feet weren't touching the floor until Kasumi finished. After letting her sister drop to the floor, she playfully held Akane's head against her buxom bosom, where she began to struggle. "I'll do so as well, Father."

"It's decided then," Soun announced, proud of his daughters. "I'll make some calls, and by the end of the day, all three rooms should be completely empty."

Akane continued to squirm, trying to get her face away from here eldest sister's large, soft boobs. Honestly, did she _have_ to be treated like a kid?

"I guess we'll be sleeping in the floor then," Nabiki commented, amused as she watched Akane give up and start licking and mouthing Kasumi's ample boobs before choosing the right tit to dry-suck on. Kasumi rubbed the back of her sister's head, smiling gently.

"Actually, no," Soun corrected. "The three of you will be sleeping outside from now on. Either on the veranda or in the yard."

"Oh my," Kasumi said, finally letting her youngest go.

Akane continued suckling for another moment or two before reluctantly drawing away and looking at the clock. "Whoops! Time for school! Come on, Nabiki, we don't want to be late!"

"Just let me grab our lunches, Akane!"

And, with that, the two sisters quickly put on their shoes in the foyer and headed off for school…

O O O

END CHAPTER FIVE

O O O

OMAKE THEATER PRESENTS: _The Strangest Thing She Ever Did For Training…_

A young Kodachi put down the pet turtle she had gotten for her birthday and looked up at her new rhythmic gymnastics martial arts instructor, eyes wide and trusting, full of wonder and innocence. The beautiful leotard clad woman held up a shiny red ball for her to see.

"This," the instructor began, "is Super Happy Fun Ball. I have been informed that you are now at least ten years of age, correct?"

Kodachi nodded, wondering what being ten had to do with using a ball.

"Good, then you can train with it for extended periods. Try not to let it near pregnant women, the elderly, or children under ten for prolonged periods."

Er… What?

"I should also caution you that Super Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds."

Kodachi tilted her head in confusion.

"Super Happy Fun Ball contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at."

The confusion gained a bit of worry…

"Do not use Super Happy Fun Ball on concrete."

Worry invited friends over to play cards. Doubt and Angst showed up with snacks…

"Discontinue using Super Happy Fun Ball if you experience any of the following: itching, vertigo, dizziness, tingling in the extremities, loss of balance or coordination, slurred speech, temporary blindness, profuse sweating, heart palpitations, belief that you are still living in a past era, or an undue obsession with hair."

Why was she supposed to be using this again?

"If Super Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover your head."

It was explosive? Why was this woman hired to train her?

"When not in use, Super Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept refrigerated."

"Umm…" the young girl knew she was going to regret asking this, but felt compelled to do so anyway, "Isn't it just a ball?"

In response, her new instructor threw the shiny red ball at Mr. Green Turtle, who began to grow and spontaneously switch species until he eventually settled on something more crocodilian in nature.

"Does that answer your question?" The obviously deranged woman didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "Good. Now we will start with avoidance practice. Begin!" And with that, the lunatic began throwing the now clearly dangerous shiny red ball at her young trainee.

The nightmares eventually faded, but Kodachi would never be innocent again…


	6. Chapter 6

_**MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA: BETA EDITION**_

**MGR: Director's Cut**

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Lord Talon

_POST_READING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Pesterfield and TharzZzDunN

LAST EDITED:

**6/27/2011:** Deleted part of a scene concerning Kasumi involving implied actions that would have made plot elements for later chapters difficult to include. Added and changed other scenes.

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Shadow22 and Mister, whose reviews pointed out to me that my story was losing focus to encroaching elements and discordant characterization. While I'm loathe to outright pull something once I've posted it, such Kudzu plot tendancies are _why_ the Beta Edition even exists, so I fully intend to wrap up and resolve this portion of the arc within the next few chapters.

On the other hand, perhaps it's time to add **Magical Guardian Ranma: Duex Mode** to the story roster as a cleaner take on things?

DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanfics, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even _gasp_ American comic books!).

TAGS: Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse

"Warning: the gratuitous nudity and bouts of outrageous fanservice are projected to rize sharply in this chapter! Will we see an end to this trend soon? This reporter can only hope..."

Reporter Yuri Hayabusa - Nerima Neighborhood News

**CHAPTER SIX:**

Kodachi noted with some bemusement that almost every student she came across as she entered the school grounds of St. Hebereke was staring at her. No doubt many of her peers had seen the previous day's television footage of her first power-up, and some probably even caught the first, uncensored, airing of the event. Fortunately, St. Hebereke was an all girl's school, so she wouldn't have to put up with the type of unwanted male attention her new friend, Akane, had told her about.

Oh, she'd most likely have to put up with various amounts of teasing, both good natured and vicious alike, but she now faced the prospect with the assurance that no matter how her schoolmates treated her, she now had true friends and a real calling for something that actually mattered.

Kodachi made some subtle, last minute adjustments to her school uniform to make sure that it was presentable, before entering the building proper and heading for her classroom.

O O O

R'hull, observing the events at the Tendo Compound via the mirror he was using for the scry spell, idly wondered what adding a sound function like the crystal cube relics would entail. While there were spells that permitted remote communication through such spells, they all involved either one way sending of messages, or the active cooperation of the observed subject for mutual conversation. Which, in turn, meant making your subject _aware_ that they were being watched, which defeated the purpose of spying on them in the first place.

While R'hul wasn't sure what the limitations of the crystal cube relics of this world were, the mere fact that they apparently caught _sound_ as well as image as a _default_ ability made it a tempting subject of study. It would, after all, make scrying so much more useful if he could tell what those he spied upon were saying. Looking away from the mirror he was using to spy on the subjects of the geasa array he had cast last night, and directed his attention to his minions, who had stayed over during the night so that they could view the results with him in the morning.

"I believe that it is safe to say that the initial geis has taken effect," the disguised c'thulhoid commented. "None of the three seem inclined to wear their normal apparel, and are in fact, remaining bare except for foot protection, or the apron the eldest had worn while cooking. Nor has their sire become alarmed by their imposed behavior. Best of all, for the time being, they haven't summoned either of their known guardian beasts, which are thus far remaining in the training hall as far as I can tell without being able to scry inside."

"So the Tendo babes'll stay naked from now on?" asked Shin, the minion who had helped summon the ill fated H'riss the previous day. "What about the other stuff we wanted them to do? Ow!" he rubbed the back of his head, where the gang leader had smacked him.

"Idiot!" Tatsuo snapped, prepared to strike his friend again if necessary. "The boss told us last night that it would take a while for everything on the list we made to show up, and they might end up not doing some of those things anyway." Lowering his voice to a harsh whisper, he continued. "Are you _trying_ to get eaten?" Shin shook his head in response.

"As your pack leader has stated," R'hul interjected, "some of the geasa might not take hold, and others, if they do show up later, may not last all that long. After all, even with the ritual, it is not as if I had direct access to any of them like I did with you lot. In fact, I started with the compulsive nudity, precisely _because_ two of them had already appeared naked in public, and the third was at least naked in their own compound. It was thus something they were vulnerable to repeating."

The boys nodded, none taking their eyes off the mirror and the naked sisters depicted within, although only some of them actually caught most of their master's context.

"Keep in mind," R'hul continued, "that the four of you who shed blood on the seals around the Tendo Compound should try to avoid being bloodied by anyone who was within its walls at the time for the next two or three days. Otherwise there is a good chance that the geasa array will destabilize early. I _would_ like to find out how long it remains stable after all, and that means giving it proper time to set."

"Now off with you." R'hul commanded. "report to your educational creshe and observe what you can of the queenling, Nabiki of Tendo, or her sister, Akane of Tendo. I am interested in how long the geasa array holds, which effects become evident, and if the 'contagious' portions of the geasa array function properly - and if so, who is effected and how far the spell spreads. If they are alphas, as you have implied, then those who view them as such are the most prone, especially those who actually do follow their lead."

O O O

Two girls made their way towards Furinkan High on foot. What separated them from other students doing the same thing was that these particular students were wearing nothing more than shoes and socks. Oddly enough, few who saw them gave them more than a second glance, and those few who looked harder or longer, ended up shaking their heads as if to clear them before going about their own business anyway. Oddly enough, this usually happened whenever they got within ten to fifteen paces of the girls in question.

"It's odd," Akane abruptly stated. "I feel like something's wrong, but I can't quite put my finger on it…"

"Hmmm…" Nabiki pondered for a moment. "Shoes, socks, our school cases and lunches… Damn, I forgot my watch!"

"I did too, but I don't think that was it," Akane replied, still thinking.

"Do you remember Daddy calling ahead about the requirements for our new training? Because I didn't hear him making any calls this morning, and I don't think he called out last night either."

"No, I don't remember him making any calls either," Akane admitted. You don't think they'd turn us away once we reach the school for not wearing our uniforms, do you?"

"We could always try explaining the situation to them," Nabiki pointed out with a shrug that caused her bare breasts to bounce just a bit more than they already were.

"That might work," Akane conceded. "It's not as if we can stop anywhere and buy new uniforms."

"Well, there _is_ Tamashino's Exotic Costumes & Uniforms Emporium just down that street a ways," Nabiki pointed out with an absent gesture. She didn't bother telling her little sister what else the shop was noted for, as she had no desire to get into an argument that might make them both late for school.

"Do you think they have anything appropriate for Furinkan?" Akane asked.

"They probably have odd variants of school uniforms from all over Japane, Akane," Nabiki stated dryly. "So they probably have something in Furinkan colors that suits our current needs. The question is if we can afford any of it. Whatever we get will have to be something small and cheep."

"Well, it couldn't hurt to check," Akane admitted. "At least as long as we don't take too long looking around."

O O O

Kikuko and Ryunami watched from the second floor window as their friend, Nabiki Tendo, and her younger sister approached the gates of Furinkan High. Both Tendo sisters were wearing shoes, socks, a floating white collar with a black ribbon tie, a set of floating cuffs buttoned at their wrists, and a small, blue waist apron with white ruffled fringe, tied around their hips with a large white bow in the back. The apron was obviously more decorative than functional, as it was only just barely long enough to provide incidental modesty for their pubic area, providing they were just standing or walking. The rest of their bodies were left otherwise bare, including their upper torsos where their breasts bounced freely with each step.

This resulted in the two observers raising an eyebrow as they stared at their friend and her younger sister, regardless of the girls' well publicized (and inadequately censored) lack of apparel on the previous night's NNN report. While they knew full well that their friend, Nabiki, was brazen enough to try something like this if she thought that she had an angle that would let her get away with it, Nabiki's younger sister, as outgoing as she was, was relatively more prudish about the way she dressed. They would have expected the younger girl to be acting embarrassed about being so under dressed, at the very least.

"This should be interesting," the short haired brunette commented.

"I wonder if this has anything to do with the bathhouse incident," wondered the strawberry blonde, who's own wavy hair was shoulder length.

"Could be, Kikuko," Ryunami nodded, thinking. "Or it might have something to do with their being magical girls. If TV shows and cartoons like Cyber Senshi Cutey Moon or Super Sentai Force Five are at all indicative of the real thing, then weird behavior and bizarre coincidences are part of the package deal once they are chosen, whether they were like that before or not."

"Shh!" Kikuko admonished quietly. "I don't think anyone else made that connection, despite how obvious it seemed to us. I mean, neither of us thought Akane was Inferno until we compared notes over who Tsunami's partner might be. And no one else is reacting oddly around them."

"I wouldn't say _that_, Kikuko," Ryunami corrected. "They're _both_ so close to completely naked as to make no never mind, since it's fairly obvious that neither of them is wearing panties under those aprons! Even so, hardly anyone is sparing them more than a double take or two. Even the gang of idiots isn't acting any rowdier than usual, and I'd have expected a naked Akane to drive them into a frothing frenzy."

"You're right, Ryunami, that _is_ odd… Kuno looks like he's about to froth though."

"Kuno _always_ looks like that," the brunette shrugged dismissively.

"Not really," Kikuko disagreed. "Sure he rants a lot, and is prone to over acting, but I've never seen him about to froth before."

"If you say so," Ryunami ceded the point. "Well, their goes the gang of idiots…" she stated, announcing the start of Akane's morning fight.

"And here comes Nabiki," Kikuko agreed. "Should we be blunt or subtle when we ask her?"

"About the outfit? May as well be blunt about that considering how brazen Nabiki can be. I doubt it would bother her too much, and you know how much beating around the bush irritates her."

Kikuko raised an eyebrow at her friend's statement.

"I mean the nervous, hesitant kind," Ryunami amended before continuing. "We should be subtle about the magical girl thing though."

O O O

Akane idly noted that she was actually having an easier time fighting off her would be suitors without any skirt or blouse restricting her movements. While the _reason_ behind the morning fights remained irritating, she was actually enjoying this particular morning's mass combat exercise due in no small part to the remaining euphoria from having recently become a magical sentai hero. So what if she was practically naked, in public, and surrounded by nasty perverted boys who would no doubt physically molest her bare body given the opportunity?

Somehow it never entered her head that her current state of dress and lack of anything remotely resembling modest apparel was at all unusual, other than the fact that all the tiny waist apron had in common with the normal Furinkan High School girl's uniform was that it was blue complimented with white.

Akane _was_ aware that _most_ other girls would normally find having to wear a nonstandard uniform upsetting, if only because anything too different would set them apart from the group. However, Akane Tendo _wasn't_ most girls. She was, she occasionally admitted to herself, a tomboy and a bit of an iconoclast among her peers. Whether she liked it or not, Akane marched to the beat of her own drum.

And this particular drummer laid down a heavy, pounding beat, raining down pain on the crowd of hormonally overloaded teenage boys as she kicked and pummeled her way through them..

Even being nearly naked in this situation didn't bother Akane in the slightest, because the outcome was never in doubt in her mind. If anything, the fight was even easier than normal, despite the potentially higher staked represented by the temptation of her nude body. In the end, as always, she overcame their numbers and rudimentary mob tactics, emerging victorious as the last one fell to her onslaught.

"Ah, how the unworthy masses fall before the glory of the fierce tigress that is Akane Tendo," Kuno began, stepping from behind a tree once the fight had concluded. "No doubt the louts had it in their minds to partake of the bounty of Furinkan High's Bare Bengal."

"Good morning, Kuno," Akane greeted the upperclassman with reluctant respect as he approached her. While not particularly flattered by her unwanted paramour's attention, she did find herself appreciating her new title for reasons that escaped her.

"Come," Kuno bade Akane, "let us away, that we might partake of each other's company in a setting more suitable for… private… endeavors."

Akane's left eye twitched as she imagined what Kuno was talking about. While some part of her seemed not to find his attention offensive, as she couldn't say he wasn't handsome, and he certainly _tried_ to exude romantic charm with his flowery speech and grand gestures, she rejected him on general principles due to his continuing assumptions that she was either already his, or that he had any say in who could date her. "Oh, Kuno," she began, voice full of saccharine sweetness…

"Yes, beloved?" he responded, ignoring all danger signs and even draping his left arm around her shoulders, unsubtly resting his hand squarely on her left breast with a gentle squeeze.

Akane turned towards Kuno, not incidentally removing her boob from his grasp as she reached down the front of his hakama and grabbed some rather delicate parts of his anatomy directly, which she then squeezed and lifted until the discomfited boy's toes where barely on the ground.

"That… hurts!" Kuno gasped out breathlessly as little Kuno and the family jewels were twisted mercilessly by the obviously irate object of his affections.

"Good! It's supposed to!" Akane huffed angrily as she easily held the larger boy by his privates. "I am _not_ some delicate prize to be fought over and won, Kuno! Or even fought _directly_ and won for that matter! I don't accept the terms of your little contest! I don't want to date you, or _any_ of the goons you convinced that this was a good idea! And as for the matter at hand…"

Akane released her grip and withdrew her hand from his pants, allowing him a brief moment to relax as he reflexively bowed his legs away from his now tender personal parts. Which were abruptly introduced to Air Akane as she planted an upwards kick between his legs that launched him up and back, headfirst into a tree.

"That's _all_ the contact they'll ever have from me if I have anything to say about it!"

Dazed and semiconscious, Tatewaki Kuno made one last observation before passing out from the pain: "Tis a pain… that will… surely linger…"

O O O

"Hey, Tetsuo," Shin began, as the gang watched Akane Tendo fight the mob of guys trying to earn a date with her, "Why are we staying out of the fight again?"

"Because the boss said that the spell would break for sure if you four got hurt by one of the Tendos before it had time to set, knucklehead!" the gang's leader snapped off in irritation. He was beginning to wonder if Shin had been… damaged… when their master had accessed their brains through their nasal cavities. "He also wanted us to just observe today, since it may take a while for all of the stuff on our list to take effect."

"Yeah, you said that," Shin agreed, "but that was only if they made us bleed, right? We could still have fun with Akane's sister, Nabubu… OW!"

"Thanks, Hito," Tetsuo nodded at the boy who had hit Shin. "First off, _Nabiki_," he enunciated clearly, "grew up in the same dojo as Akane. She almost _has_ to know at least a little martial arts."

"Not that I've ever seen," Shin countered, rubbing the back of his head.

"She don't _act_ like no defenseless chick," Gai pointed out.

"And _second_," Tetsuo continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "even in the unlikely case that Nabiki _doesn't_ know how to fight, Akane does! One of the things we were hoping for hasn't taken effect at all, or at least not yet, since she certainly doesn't _look_ like she's gotten any meeker since last night! What do you think will happen if she gets wind that we've been feeling up her sister?"

"She'd probably fight… us… Oh!" Shin answered as the light dawned.

"That's right, you goofball," Gai put in. "Akane would be as mad as nails and at least one of us would be a bloody mess!"

"Speaking of which," Tetsuo brought their attention back to Akane's fight, "the prelim's over. Kuno's making his play. Let's see if the spell made her any more approachable one on one."

"Ooh! You see that? She let him grope her tits!"

"Maybe, but she still looks kind of pissed."

"Hey, pissed I can live with if it get's me a hand-job! She's reaching right down his… ow… er… never mind, I think I'll pass on that idea after all…"

"Good plan. Ouch! That's gotta hurt!"

"Well, Akane's had her say, and Kuno's still standi-OW! Geeze! Did you see that kick!"

"Better plan - we wait until the spell spreads to some _other_ girls, and try our luck with a less aggressive chick?"

"Yeah - let's to that."

"Well, there's still Nabubu… OW!"

"Thanks, Hito."

"No problem, Tatsuo."

O O O

"Hey guys!" Akane greeted her friends cheerfully as she entered the classroom. Asami, Hiroko, Yuka, and Sayuri quickly gathered around Akane as she reached her desk and sat down.

"So," Yuka started off in a hushed tone, "What's it like being a magical girl, Akane?" While she _had_ been burning with curiosity as to why her Akane and her sister had come to school practically naked, that particular question inexplicably slipped her mind before Akane had made it even two steps into their classroom.

"You know about that?" Akane asked, shrinking into her seat a little.

"It's kind of obvious, Akane," Sayuri responded. She found herself admiring the same daring fashion statement that had worried her up to the point Akane actually entered the room.

"Well, to us, anyway," Hiroko put in, casually shrugging off the blue dress of her school uniform without really thinking about it, letting it fall to the floor around her feet. "Everyone else seems to either be wondering who Inferno and Tsunami are, or talking about the aftermath when you and Nabiki were on TV with that raiju."

"Inferno?" Akane tilted her head to the side as she thought about that for a moment, before straightening up again. "I guess I can live with that. Sensei calls us 'Sparky' and 'Squirt', which is okay for practice, but I don't really want to go by 'Sparky' in public."

"You have a sensei for senshi stuff?" Yuka asked, surprised, as she unbuttoned her blouse.

"Can we meet him?" Asami almost pleaded as she let her own blouse drop to the floor on top of her dress as she started unfastening her bra.

"Ooh! That would be _so_ cool!" Sayuri enthused as she rapidly slipped her panties past her knees and kicked them off.

"I don't see why not," Akane shrugged, not even wondering _why_ her friends had stripped down to their shoes and socks, merely accepting that they did, and that other girls in her class were starting to do the same as well.

Mr Ozaka stepped into the classroom, fully _intending_ to send Akane Tendo, an otherwise good student despite the morning fights that she had to put up with, to the Vice Principle's office. Public nudity on school grounds was certainly _not_ acceptable behavior for _any_ student, and that tiny excuse for an apron hardly counted as clothing, even if it _was_ in school colors! However, those intentions were instantly forgotten as he noticed that every single one of the girls in the classroom had apparently stripped down even further than Akane, as each one was now wearing only their shoes and socks. His left eye ticked for a moment, and he felt a fleeting mental pressure before he calmed down and took in the scene before him once again…

"Ahem," the teacher coughed, getting the attention of the students. "I don't really care _why_ each of you young ladies has apparently decided to protest the Furinkan High School girl's uniform in this manner, but you _cannot_ just leave them on the floor of the classroom like this! Akane, since you seem to be the instigator of this movement, you and your friends are to gather up all the discarded clothing and take them out to the dumpters behind the school."

"Yes, Sensei," Akane nodded, with a hint of frustration in her voice, but otherwise not protesting the perceived injustice. It wasn't _her_ fault that all the girls in the classroom decided to take off their uniforms! Still, she decided as she helped her friends gather the discarded garments, it wasn't like she was getting a detention or anything…

O O O

Miyu's complexion was a curious war between the pale white of horror and the bright pink of total embarrassment. She _knew_ it had been a bad idea to come to school today, but she _also_ knew that thing would somehow have become even worse if she had stayed home. As it was, she was apparently only one of two students in classroom 1-F to realize what was actually going on. And of the two, _she_ wasn't the one to be proving somehow immune to the spell everyone else seemed to be under.

Mortifyingly, Miyu discovered that being _aware_ of the geis in no way allowed her to _resist_ the compulsive behavior it inflicted, so she was _just_ as naked as every other girl besides Akane in the classroom, and until the spell was broken, was also the only one feeling any embarrassment about it.

Somehow, after their fight with the tentacled rape monster yesterday, another tentacled rape monster (this one in some sort of disguise) had managed to infect Akane and her sister with a contagious geis or set of geasa that the two were unwittingly spreading to almost everyone who got close enough to them.

The effect on girls about their own age was obvious, as the behavioral changes involved were the most extreme, but it also passed onto boys and people both older and younger in different ways.

Case in point with the boys is that, while they were certainly appreciating the show, they weren't letting all the bare female flesh around them distract them from actually paying attention to the teachers. Well, except for Gosenkugi, who Miyu somehow knew was totally untouched by the spell, and was apparently experiencing some sort of panic reaction. Not that anyone else noticed the gaunt, pale boy.

And the spell, whatever it was, was definitely contagious and _spreading!_ Before lunch, it would infect almost everyone in Furinkan High and a sizable portion of the population of Nerima. After lunch, their would be an assembly in the auditorium, and the _rest_ of the school would be afflicted. And all the girls would receive their new uniforms from the emergency rush order the school was only just now sending out to the same store Akane and her sister had gotten _their_ ersatz waist apron uniforms from.

Fortunately, although Miyu didn't know just how long the spell would actually last, it would be gone within three days at the most. The only thing that kept her from just calling in sick for those three days was the premonition of doom that fortold the death of herself and her family if she stayed home. Because the tentacled rape monster who was behind this was looking for those who were immune or somehow avoiding being effected. And the only person _guaranteed_ to be unnoticed by the demon's search was a pale, gaunt boy trembling in fear two rows back and to the left of Miyu…

A boy that was somehow the only hope they had for breaking the spell before it wore off on its own in three days.

Hikaru Gosenkugi. The **KEY**. Hope and Doom to them all.

Somehow, Miyu did not feel very reassured about their prospects…

O O O

"So," Ryunami began, "how's this naked apron thing working out for you, Nabiki?"

"Yeah," Kikuko added playfully as she poked Nabiki's left nipple like a button, "what's it like to have your bouncing buxom bosom and beautiful bare bottom boundless before the boys and babes before you?"

"That was terrible, Kikuko!" the short haired brunette admonished, as Nabiki shook her head in rueful amusement.

"Good use of alliteration though, if a bit strained," Nabiki commented. Thinking about the actual question for a moment, she then continued. "As for being on display like this, I actually find nudity to be very comfortable. You should give it a go yourselves if you're curious."

All the girls within earshot blinked simultaneously as if a switch had been thrown.

"Sure, I'll give it a shot," Runami volunteered, already undoing the buttons on her blouse.

"Could be fun," Kikuko agreed amiably as she too doffed her school uniform and let it fall to the floor.

In fact, in short order, every girl in the classroom was almost completely naked, wearing only their socks and school shoes, just like Nabiki herself was. For her part, despite being aware of how unlikely it was for all of her female classmates to decide to go nude, Nabiki somehow failed to find the sudden mass strip show even the least bit suspicious.

"You might want to fold those up and find someplace to put them all," Nabiki suggested dryly, just loud enough to carry through the classroom. "Mr. Mizura probably wouldn't like it if he came in and found all of your uniforms on the floor…"

Only a handful of delinquent students, each a member of a certain gang that had inside information on what was _really_ going on, noticed as the geis started to spread…

O O O

Kei and Seito were each using a hive-like isolation 'rest' cell set into a wall of one of the back rooms of the Agency's Nerima office to catch some power sleep before going to see the Tendo family once school let out. If something came up, they could be awakened easily enough, but as they had both been up most of the night dealing with the local police precinct, answering questions from the Bureau, and fielding attention from both the Department and the Institute, they _really_ needed to catch up on their sleep before trying to establish contact with potentially volatile newbie magical girls.

Besides, if anything unusual _did_ start happening, they were sure their coworkers would wake them up soon enough…

O O O

Kasumi hummed lightly as she helped her father gather and pack every last thing she and her sisters owned so that they could be carted off to the thrift store. Since the clothing was to be burnt on the way, it had been decided that it would all just be jumbled together with loose, dry papers and stuffed into bags. The mattresses were already loaded onto the cart, along with the bed frames, with their personal possessions backed up in boxes on top. The other large pieces of furniture would remain in the yard, either for later trips or for someone else to come and haul them away.

"This should be the last of it," Kasumi called out as she came out of the house carrying a couple of large boxes awkwardly with her fingers hooked under the lower box while her breasts rested on top of the upper one. While Kasumi couldn't call the way she held them comfortable or easy, it somehow just seemed appropriate for her to do it this way regardless. In fact she had carried everything out to the cart that she could with her ample bosom either sitting on top of, or otherwise framing, her burden.

"Just put them on the cart with the others, Kasumi," Soun responded as he secured the load to the two wheeled wagon. "Did you remember to leave yourselves some socks, a set of aprons, and your shoes?"

"As of now," Kasumi replied as she set the boxes onto the cart before stepping back to run a mental inventory, "counting the socks Nabiki and Akane wore to school, we each have seven pair each, and all of our shoes. I only kept two aprons for cooking though. For cleaning, I thought that it would be better to select some that accessorized our bare bodies better."

"If that's what you want to do, I don't see why not," Soun nodded agreeably as he tied the last of the bags in place as his eldest daughter slipped into a pair of socks and her blue running shoes. "Well, that's all secure! Let's head out to the market!" With that, he climbed onto the cart himself and sat cross-legged atop one of the sturdier boxes.

"Yes, Father," his oldest daughter replied cheerfully as she stepped between the handles, facing away from the cart. She was able to lift the handles with relatively ease since they had taken care to balance the load evenly on the two wheeled wagon, but Kasumi had to put a lot of effort into getting started. However, once she got the cart rolling, Kasumi found it simple enough to keep it moving.

Soun figured that it was high time his daughters proudly displayed their beautiful bare bodies for all to see. It was nice that they were finally comfortable enough with themselves that they didn't mind dressing only enough to accessorize their otherwise nude bodies rather than for any mistaken concept of physical modesty. His little girls should be seen under their own physical merits, rather than by the value of any such needless and over done packaging. The fact that this bizarre turn in how he perceived and treated his daughters' ideal state was so bent you could almost make a pretzel out of it never occurred to him even once since he had woken up, and it was only getting stranger as the day went on.

Kasumi, for her part, found moving the cart a _lot_ easier once she had reached the hard level surface of the sidewalk, and decided to have fun playing 'horsy' by pulling the cart with a high stepping 'canter' that made her bare bosom bounce vigorously. Sure, there was _some_ discomfort involved with allowing her generous assets jiggle and sway with total freedom, but it felt so liberating, so fun, and somehow so appropriate to let her buxom bosom bounce boundlessly as she boldly brandished her borderline bare body.

Actually, Kasumi experienced a momentary dizziness as her mind temporarily rebelled against her dubious mental alliteration. Shaking it off, she instead pondered the value of purchasing some pony-girl accessories, such as bits, bridals, harnesses, and reigns for her sisters and herself. Purely for training purposes, of course. And maybe a little fun as well…

O O O

Kodachi absently jotted down notes as she paid half attention to her lessons. Naturally, her popularity had risen a bit, as she had expected, with everyone wanting to know what it was like being a magical girl, or who Tsunami and Inferno were.

Which took her a moment to figure out, since neither Nabiki nor Akane had used thos names. Not that she bothered telling anyone once she did, as it wasn't any of their business. If her friends decided to go public, it was _their_ decision to make, not hers. She valued their friendship too much to risk losing it over something as trivial as high school popularity.

Perhaps she would head over to see her new friends after school? It wasn't as if she wanted to deal with her brother's tomfoolery again…

O O O

Soun looked over the purchases his eldest daughter had made after they had burned clothing and sold off everything they had brought with them on the first load. All in all, it wasn't much. Just some groceries for the week, the waist aprons she had mentioned, and some straps and harnesses for some sort of 'horse' style training Kasumi was interested in having herself and her sisters go through. Of which, Kasumi was already wearing one of the three sets as she pulled the cart he was riding in towards home, with her shoes and socks in one of the bags beside him.

He didn't really object to the additional training as such, as he thought about it. It seemed to be a combination of discipline training and physical conditioning, and not very different from what he and Genma had to go through while training under the Master. He was just a little surprised that his baby girls might want to go through similar training willingly.

After three more round trips to sell off the remaining furniture, Soun absently tugged the reigns (attached to Kasumi's nipples by alligator clips rather than by piercing or being attached to the bit in her mouth). It was a nice day, and he felt an extended scenic route through the nearby park would give Kasumi time enough to reflect on if she _really_ wanted to inflict this training on herself and her sisters.

Kasumi was experiencing considerable physical discomfort caused by her bouncing boobs, the pinching teeth of the alligator clips on her tits (with the occasional painful tug to one side or the other as her father handled the reins), and the hard, warm, and occasionally _hot_ touch of the sidewalks and pavement on her bare feet. Even so, she couldn't help but feel that this was all somehow appropriate and proper. She still remained totally oblivious to the embarrassment and humiliation she would ordinarily be feeling in this situation.

In fact, Kasumi was actually _enjoying_ playing pony-girl in public. She was perfectly content with having her bare body on display, and didn't mind in the least when her father had her stop occasionally so he could pick up this or that item at some shop or other, or get to talking with one of his friends or acquaintances. In fact, she was rather pleased to find herself being absently patted by passers by as if she really _was_ the horse she was pretending to be. She _did,_ however, politely decline unspoken overtures to allow herself to be groped casually by people she hardly knew, or by complete strangers for that matter, drawing away from the occasional wandering hand despite a strange urge to let it fondle her breasts, loin, or buttocks.

An urge she pushed out of her head as being entirely too familiar an act for anyone other than friends or family. And going further would be too intimate even then, although...

Kasumi made a mental note to pay a visit to a certain young Doctor. She still had one of his books to return after all. Besides, she was old enough now, and he wasn't so much older that it would look unseemly, so perhaps it was time to see if there was anything behind those silly little acts he did whenever they met. Dr. Tofu didn't use to act this way, and everyone else told her that he behaved differently when she wasn't around...

Meanwhile, everywhere Soun and Kasumi had went throughout Nerima, people were beginning to act a bit… strange. With the most noticeable evidence being women of all ages removing most, or even _all_, of whatever they had been wearing at the time, and some of them acting like pony-girls…

O O O

Linna Yamazaki grimaced at the write up she had gotten for not adjusting to the firm's new female dress code that had been passed down shortly after lunch. Her first day on the job, practically fresh out of high school, and she was already demoted from being an office lady serving tea in accounting to being a mailroom intern. And just because she hadn't received the memo until just after the posted afternoon deadline for compliance.

"Okay, newbie," one of the mail room clerks addressed the now nearly naked young woman standing before him as he handed her a small package, "lose the shoes and socks and put this on. Someone in management decided to get cutesy with the new policies, so all office ladies working in the mail department are now collectively known as the 'Pony-Girl Express."

"Yes, sir," Linna complied, removing her footwear and unwrapping what turned out to be an adorable little pony-girl torso halter with the number seven displayed both on the central rear connection for the straps and on the cute brass tag hanging from the collar. She loved it immediately.

"From here on out, until you are promoted out of the mail department, you will be referred to as Pony-Girl Number Seven, Pony-Girl Seven, P.G.7, Number Seven, or simply Seven." the man instructed Linna as she put on her new uniform. "If anyone asks for your 'rank', or actually needs to know it for whatever reason, it is currently Third Class, Probationary, and then just Third Class if you make it through the sixty day trial period."

"Yes, sir," Linna nodded as she fastened the last of the leather halter's straps.

"As a lowly Third Class, you may not wear anything _but_ your uniform bridal and halter while on the clock. In the event that you are given something going anywhere _outside_ this building, you may add shoes and socks to your work attire, but _only_ until you return."

"Yes, sir."

"Good girl!" the man said, giving her bare bottom a friendly pat. "Now that the new stuff is over with, let me tell you what your actual _duties_ as a member of the Pony-Girl Express are…"

As Linna Yamazaki, newly christened Pony-Girl Number Seven, Third Class, eagerly listened, she thought absolutely nothing of the fact that this whole situation would have had her committing physical and verbal assault on most of the men in the office had any of it had occurred even fifteen minutes before she memo for the new dress code was sent out. That being when she had bumped into another female intern as the woman was stepping out of one of the elevators wearing nothing but shoes and socks herself…

O O O

Back at Furinkan High, both Akane and Nabiki felt a wave of mental pressure. Akane momentarily wondering _why_ she felt a brief urge to let herself be fondled and groped by the boys in the auditorium around them before remembering that she didn't actually even _like_ any of her male classmates due to Kuno's shenanigans, just brushed off the feeling and then forgot about it. Nabiki, on the other hand, having exhibitionist tendencies that both of her sisters lacked, was blissfully unaware that she had almost _failed_ to resist a portion of the spell array that her sisters had shrugged off so easily.

So while the rest of the girls of Furinkan High stood up and got in line to receive their _new_ regulation school uniforms that were pioneered by the two Tendo sisters that morning, the two sisters in question remained seated, surrounded by their male classmates. A brief cry of pain from a boy sitting next to Akane, said boy then getting up and heading out of the auditorium cradling a disfigured hand, was taken as a cue by the rest of the boys around her to move a seat or two further away from the girl. Nabiki, on the other hand, merely batted away a few hesitantly wandering hands.

After all, while she may have enjoyed the attention, she had other priorities.

Oddly, only those girls who actually had or _wanted_ boyfriends let anyone get away with more than a few seconds of light contact. And even among them, most only went as far as permitting heavy petting for the time being.

These behaviors gradually spread haphazardly throughout the auditorium as the assembly went on, intermixing in random patterns as they passed from student to student in random fluctuations.

Oddly, only one girl in the whole school actually felt any _embarrassment_ about it, and Miyu still couldn't bring herself to actually resent either Akane or Nabiki for unknowingly bringing a contagious curse to school with them. She _also_ came to the horrifying realization that the same psychic awareness that allowed her to be uniquely _aware_ of the geasa array also rendered her exceptionally vulnerable to the various effects as they unfolded.

Miyu _really_ wished that Gosenkugi would get on the ball and do whatever it was he apparently could do to end the geis early, preferably _before_ she herself became more than merely 'eye candy.'

O O O

R'hul considered this initial experiment to be an outstanding success. The female crèchemates of the two younger Tendo siblings were all emulating their imposed behavior now, with interesting effects on their instructors and male counterparts. Granted, not everything in the geasa array seemed to be taking hold with both of them, but he didn't really expect a complete success anyway.

Their elder sibling had _also_ resisted that particular aspect, but had instead succumbed to a different coercion of the spell cluster, leading her to behave as a slave or draft animal. R'hul wondered if this was an implication that she considered herself to be either a beta or omega type rather than an alpha. Which was odd, as apparently enough of the other locals apparently held her in high enough esteem to also fall victim to the curse. On the other hand it might actually be close to, or even actually be, similar to some sort of discipline or stamina training on this world. It wasn't as if R'hul hadn't done such things himself before he was selected for scout training.

Akane of Tendo _had_, against all expectations, failed to succumb to one of the more intimate geasa, except in regards to her own sisters. R'hul didn't know what to think about that, as she had been the primary focus of it. Granted, R'hul himself wasn't particularly interested in rock monkeys in this manner, but his minions were, and they had concentrated most impressively on the young female in question.

On the other appendage, it was still a promising sign that neither guardian beast had left the training hall in the Tendo compound yet. Not that he could see into it with whatever shielding spell it had in place. So none of the _current_ geasa array went against whatever the beasts were set to guard their charges from. That was good to know, and might be exploitable in later experiments.

As for the other goal of the test, it was too early yet to tell who might be resistant or immune to the spreading curse yet. Still, he supposed it was best to set up watch over the nesting structures immediately surrounding the one he was hiding in. If the inhabitants of any one of them remained unaffected once the curse swept through this portion of the neighborhood, they would be dealt with swiftly, silently, and as fatally as he could arrange on short notice.

If any of them survived and proved themselves to be hunters, R'hul would call it a wash and find another hiding place, but if they were just immunes or resistant, then better to get rid of them while he had the opportunity…

O O O

Gosenkugi's heart raced as he made copious notes and diagrams of what he would need once he got home. Akane and her older sister… Midori? Nabiki? Whatever… they had fought a tentacled rape demon yesterday and somehow ended up with a curse suitable to a hentai anime as a result. While he couldn't say that he didn't _enjoy_ the show, he somehow doubted that the demon they battled the previous day was the only one that would pop up.

And if Akane and Nabiki were too busy being High School eye candy, then they would hardly be paying any attention to their apparent new duties as devil hunters.

Besides, if the warding strips he was trying to design worked, perhaps Akane would _finally_ notice him!

Part of him wanted to wait until he got home and had access to his books and better materials, but _every single time_ he put his pensil down, the creepy girl who did tarot card readings would turn and glare at him. It was really freaking him out...

O O O

As various iterations of R'hul's geasa array spread haphazardly throughout the Nerima district, it began to interact with the mystic and/or chaotic energies of several of the local 'hot-spots' that were one of the primary reasons why the area was an epicenter of weirdness. Not that the various local families with odd traditional 'martial arts' styles weren't strange, but they were more of a symptom rather than the cause.

For example, just passing near enough to the Ghost Cat's temple replaced 'pony-girl' with 'cat-girl' in several threads of the pattern of the curse as it proliferated. Which _mainly_ caused the majority of the women of all ages who happened to like cats more than horses to add feline affectations to their speach and behavior while refusing to wear _anything_ but cat-ear headbands and pet collars with tags and/or bells on them. Oddly enough, this would have the effect of calming down the troubled spirit there for some time, as it made a list of potential 'brides' and/or temple maidens and found them to be numerous enough to decide to try to actually court one to his side rather than desperately kidnap the otherwise too few prospects that had been the norm.

The Mirror Manor, while not _directly_ effected in and of itself, unfortunately anchored portions of the spell's paradigm, which would precipitate a trend in local female service costumes towards the erotic. With maids from Nerima wearing bare breasted fashions as their normal preferred working attire, they would soon outstrip French maids as the sexiest around.

The less said about Cowboy Feng's Space Bar & Grill, the better. Just note that the meeting between the contagious curse and the time traveling bistro pretty much ensured that certain problems would pop up again on an irregular basis and at random locations _long_ after the initial predicament had been dealt with.

The local office of the Mystic Investigations Agency was actually well shielded from this sort of thing, both from without, and from within as well (the later due to storing some otherwise extremely dangerous cursed artifacts in small individually warded vaults). As such, they didn't even notice the problem until someone wondered why Watanabe was taking so long bringing back the food everyone had ordered for lunch.

And this is just a few of the oddities in Nerima that the magical affliction currently unfolding throughout the district has to deal with…

O O O

As Kasumi tiredly pulled the cart her father was riding in up to the main gate of the Tendo compound, she noted that Mr. and Mrs. Saotome were waiting for them. Even with as much pain as she was in, with sore feet and tender breasts, she suppressed the urge to limp and waited for her father to dismount and open the gate so she could go inside and put the cart and its contents away. Removing her pony-girl harness and accessories, she draped them over the clothesline before going to the outside tap and filling a bucket to rinse herself off before entering the house and putting on her new apron and house slippers.

It was time to be a good hostess, and the rest she desperately needed would just have to wait.

O O O

In the dojo, still resting on the low folding table where the girls had left it the previous day, Ranma's sapphire token lay forgotten, as actually letting him _out_ of his spirit gem somehow never occurred to anyone so far this day...

**END CHAPTER SIX**

O O O

**OMAKE THEATER PRESENTS: **_Sibling Script Disputes…_

Akane, Nabiki, and Kasumi were sitting in their set trailer during one of their breaks between scenes. They were each wearing robes over their _extremely_ revealing production costumes as they perused over the scripts in their hands.

"I can't believe you want us to do this 'pony-girl' thing, Kasumi," Akane huffed. "It's bad enough we're using the _smaller_ aprons Nabiki found for the naked apron parts! The waist aprons don't hide our boobs at all, but your harnesses don't hide _anything!_"

"You don't seem to mind being naked in general for this production," Nabiki pointed out dryly.

"Feh… this production is tagged as being a 'Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse," the youngest Tendo replied off-handedly. "I actually get that. And we did enough nude scenes in the core show anyway, not to mention all the spin-off scripts we've done. At least in this one I get to be something _other_ than a man hating psycho. And getting to play with sentai hero magical powers makes up for having to put up with the extra nudity."

"Fair enough," Nabiki nodded, before returning her attention to her older sister. "I _am_ curious as to why you insisted on adding the pony-girl fetish, Kasumi.

"But I _like_ ponies…" Kasumi mumbles as she absently stroked a plastic stylized toy pony hidden in the sleeves of her robe…


	7. Chapter 7

_**MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA: BETA EDITION**_

**MGR: Director's Cut**

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Lord Talon

POSTREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Pesterfield

DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanfics, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even _gasp_ American comic books!).

TAGS: Gothic Horror Romantic Sex Comedy Adventure Drama Alternaverse

By the time Happosai enters this story, he's probably going to be mad that he missed these chapters…

**CHAPTER SEVEN:**

"Ugh" Kei mumbled blearily as the alarm tone woke her up. She felt that she hadn't had _nearly_ enough sleep yet, and in her groggy state it took her another moment to realize that the insistent alarm tone blaring in her ears wasn't the general wake up beeping the Agency used for power naps and full rest cycles. The pulsating yellow light accompanying just confirmed that the office had entered 'high alert' mode.

Rolling off of the simple shelf bed, Kei dropped lightly to her feet, taking the thin mat off of it before folding the shelf up into the wall. Seito, being Seito, was already halfway out the door, straightening his tie by the time she sent the mat down the specialized laundry chute. Still, it didn't take long for Kei to catch up to her shorter partner, and in moments they were in the situation room, where they each were handed a sheaf of papers.

"What's going on?" Kei asked, noting that the top sheet merely had the instructions: **STAY INSIDE THIS BUILDING! DO NOT LEAVE WARDED AREAS!**

"This doesn't look good," Saito grumbled as he sat down and cross-compared incoming reports. "Some sort of curse is spreading through Nerima, causing aberrant behavior patterns in affected individuals. Almost every field agent sent to investigate so far has succumbed to the effects shortly after encountering the phenomenon. Five agents managed to report some sort of mental pressure after getting within roughly ten meters visual distance of an obvious victim, but four of _those_ apparently forget about it almost immediately and could not discern that anything is actually out of the ordinary. When actually _told_ what was wrong, three reported that they weren't able to change their behavior despite becoming aware of the curse, while the other one _still_ can't tell that anything is wrong."

"Sounds like an artifact curse I encountered a while back," Kei commented as she began to read her own papers. "So we _should_ just need to find whatever juju idol it was that some idiot moved and either put it back or destroy it, depending on how the curse works." Kei paused to accept a cup of coffee one of the interns handed to her.

"Given the comportment displayed by those afflicted so far, I'd say this is more likely to be connected with yesterday's intruder somehow," Saito informed his partner.

"The 'T.R.D.'? Do I even want to know?"

"Third paragraph down," Saito pointed out.

"Ack," Kei's left eyebrow twitched as she read the indicated section. Then she read it again and sat forward, spreading the sheets out and trying to cross-compare it with any similar sections she could find. "Wait a minute… An _eye candy_ curse and no reports of open sexual activity beyond _heavy petting!_ Not exactly what _I_ expected from a demon that looked like _that_."

"Might have been a prude," Saito commented, "or it's another demon altogether, if not some artifact that it somehow deposited during yesterday's events."

"I'm hoping it's option three," Kei responded dryly, "but I know we can't be that lucky. _This_ soon after the first demon, and in the same area, it's either a retribution curse or another demon."

O O O

Nodoka sat to the left of the dojo entrance she watched her husband help his friend with the scheduled Monday afternoon class. Kasumi herself was on her hands and knees next to Nodoka, still training after a fashion while at the same time resting her sore feet in preparation for her father's class to let out. Currently, the naked young woman was balancing a serving bowl filled with ice cold punch on the small of her back with trays of already filled cups resting on her ass and shoulders and a plate of snacks set precariously on top of her head as she faced towards the far wall. The point of the exercise being, besides providing refreshment for her father's students, to hold herself steady and drop neither trays, bowl, nor even a single drop of punch if she could help it.

None of the students thought anything of it, having done or witnessed similar discipline techniques themselves, even if not with the one doing them actually being naked. Their own part in this exercise was to resist being distracted as they went through their own lessons. Those who did joined their sensei's eldest daughter as impromptu furniture or 'statuary.'

There were already three students doing so, each now just as naked as their sensei's daughter. One man was precariously balancing a lamp, fishbowl, and several other small items that you might find on a hallway table, on his head and back, in a pose matching Kasumi's. Another was holding one of the practice boards down low as a display shelf, with some standing picture frames, a bonsai tree, and his own genitals resting on it. The third one, a woman, was kneeling and leaning back slightly as she held a chalk board with her hands at the bottom corners while her breasts were draped over the top to hold it in place.

Nodoka could not help but admire the poise Soun's eldest daughter demonstrated as she held still even as frigid condensation rolled down the side of the bowl and dripped onto the young woman's back. She also commended her and Akane for the loyalty they showed in joining Nabiki in the punishment that Kasumi herself had suggested. She had inspected their former bedrooms herself, and each one was now totally bare. After Soun's class was over, she and Genma would be helping Soun and Kasumi wash the walls and scrub and polish the floors of the three rooms so that they could be rented by guests.

The Saotome matriarch happily handed out cups as Soun and his students gathered around Kasumi and her for refreshments. She refilled the cups as needed, until most of the punch and all of the snacks were gone, at which point took the trays and bowl off of Kasumi, handing them back once the young woman stood up to take them back into the house.

Shortly afterwards, the young woman came back out to join Nodoka on the veranda just outside the family room. "Do you need anything, Aunty Saotome?"

Nodoka thought about it for a moment, and then spotted her husband and his friend setting up a shogi game. "Soun, Genma, I believe Kasumi deserves a more demanding version of the exercise she just did. Set up your game on her back, as she balances that and whatever refreshments and snacks I serve you. Now I know you two used to enjoy being a little silly with your games on occasion…"

"Well, you know how it was, Dear," Genma laughed as Soun rubbed the back of his head.

"Training under the master was so stressful that we never could play a _serious_ game when it was time to unwind," Soun explained.

"That's fine," Nodoka replied. "I just brought it up because I'd like you two to do a variation of that to challenge Kasumi. Play your game normally, but anything that you do to disrupt it must be by making her react. Kasumi, as before, you are to try to hold still, no matter what they do, and not let anything on you shift or spill if you can help it."

"Yes, Aunty," Kasumi responded as she got back on her hands and knees to play table again. As she looked out over the koi pond in the side yard, she could feel the board being set up on the small of her back, and hear the soft clicks as the two men maneuvered their respective pieces over the next few minutes. And then the poking started.

Kasumi held out as long as she could, managing to remain relatively still as she was poked, prodded, and spanked by her father, his friend, and occasionally even Aunty Saotome. However, once the tickling stated, her composure disappeared and all three adults were soon tickling the hysterically giggling girl mercilessly as she rolled, twisted, and writhed over the spilled game pieces, snacks, and tea.

Somehow, the Saotome matriarch had forgotten that the _whole point_ of coming to visit the Tendo family today was to get more acquainted with her son, Ranma, whose sapphire token had been placed on a shelf in the training hall by Soun when he was preparing it for the arrival of his students earlier…

O O O

Yuri Hayabusa, spunky girl reporter for Nerima Neighborhood News, came out of the tailor shop wearing earrings, a brand new cyan blazer, and a pair of matching pumps. The blazer was a more expensive version of one of the daring new fashions sweeping through the area since the day started, an abbreviated cut that fastened just above her navel and left her pert bosom fully exposed. All in all, she rather liked the hot new style, enjoying the appreciative looks that most of the men and not a few of the women were giving her otherwise bare body.

In fact…

"Aika?" the reporter addressed her current assistant, a young woman who was now wearing nothing more than socks and low heel pumps.

"Yes, Yuri?"

"Here's the keys to my apartment. Have some people remove every single article of clothing that doesn't match the new Nerima styles."

"What do you want done with them?"

"Just have them destroyed or something," Yuri waved the question off casually. "It's not like I'm ever going to bother wearing any of my old outfits ever again after all."

"You got it, Boss!" Aika agreed happily, bobbing up and down on her heels briefly, causing her breasts to jiggle and bounce.

Yuri reached over and gave her assistant's ass a friendly pat. "Hop to it, girl! If you get done quick enough, I might just let you be on camera with me as we cover the latest style sweeping Nerima!"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Aika trotted off, ignoring the discomfort of her freely bouncing bosom as visions of being on television danced in her head.

And, fitting the same pattern that was rapidly becoming endemic throughout Nerima, not once did it occur to Yuri, Aika, nor even the rest of the news team taking a break outside their modified military surplus blue and chrome armored personnel carrier, that any of this was out of the ordinary, other than the sheer speed which the latest hot new fashion trend seemed to be taking off…

O O O

Akane's team cheered as she struck the ball clear over the right outfield fence. Dropping the bat, Akane jogged around the baseball diamond wearing what passed as the new girls' gym uniform: A pair of plain white socks and red running shoes. A few of her classmates were also wearing either wristbands, sweatbands, or both, but she herself remained otherwise naked. Akane noted the groups of boys watching as they sat relatively close by in the next field over, cheering her on as they waited for their turns at the outside exercise equipment.

Once again, there was a brief mental pressure, almost like a rolling wave of water washing over her, there and gone in an instant, and forgotten almost as quickly once it was gone.

Ah, what the heck. It was a nice day, she had just hit a home run, and it wasn't as if any of the boys were swarming over to mob her at the moment. They _deserved_ a nice show and she felt like giving them one! With a wave and a wink in the boys' general direction, Akane adjusted her jogging stride so that her modest bosom jiggled and bounced harder for her audience as she proudly displayed her bare body in victory…

O O O

The foreman for the reconstruction crew working on the demolished bathhouse shrugged as he looked over the revised blueprints he had just received. If the client decided that the new structure was to be completely unisex, he wasn't going to argue about it. Heck, it would simplify the rebuild and they might even manage to wrangle an early completion bonus and grab an extra reconstruction project or two if this sort of thing kept up!

O O O

"You know," Ryunosuke Fujiyama grumbled at her father as she pulled the large, two wheeled cart loaded with several large cardboard boxes behind her, "when you said I had to come help you pick up and deliver the emergency reprint of student handbooks for some of the local high schools, I at least thought I'd be… I dunno, actually _helping_ you! Y'know, as opposed to say, hauling your lazy ass while you rode on top of the wagon!"

"Oh be quiet, Boy!" Ryoma admonished his 'son'. "I know for a fact that my brother went through training like this under that ancient master of his, and that he in turn put his own son through it as well. Why, your cousin, Ranma, was half your age hauling supplies for the Hama Tea House during that visit, with Genma, me, _and_ you riding the tumbrel! That's when you decided that you wanted to be strong, like your cousin, remember?"

"Oh yeah… Actually, thinking back on it, I wanted to go with them when they left."

"Bah. I needed you for the restaurant back then, Boy. Besides, I doubt you would have appreciated sharing Ranma's next lesson if my idiot brother followed the training advice in that joke manual I gave him as a going away present."

"What are you talking about, Pop? What training manual"

"Nezumiken or Nekoken or some such. Basically, it amounted to wasting perfectly good food by wrapping the student in it and tossing him into a pit filled with small animals. Good for a laugh or two, and I doubt even Genma would put his own son through it. More than once, anyway. Maybe twice. Five times at the most."

"You're a real bastard, Pop. I just want you to know that."

"Shut up and keep pulling, Boy," Ryoma snapped. "Or I'll get one of those harness sets like the ones those girls over there are wearing and force you to run around pretending to be a girl with your tumors hanging out for all to see! Everyone will be going 'Oh, look! There goes Ryunosuke, the boy with boobs like a girl!'"

"I have boobs because I _am_ a girl, you jackass!" Although, for once, Ryunosuke wasn't really objecting to her father's bizarre practice of insisting that she was a boy and forcing her to bind her chests. Case in point being that the current weirdness passing through Nerima seemed to be bypassing her for once.

Actually seeing that many of the girls wandering around, including Shinobu Miyake and Ryoko Mendo, were wearing little more than shoes, socks, and maybe an abbreviated blazer that left their breasts bare, and that some were indeed wearing pony-girl gear, she was actually _thankful_ for her father's stubborn idiocy for once.

Several times, unbeknownst to Ryunosuke Fujiyama, the geasa array sweeping through the area _tried_ to set its hooks into her, only to wash away like water off a duck's back due to her severely misplaced gender role as a boy, despite her own desire to be feminine…

O O O

"We're home!" Nabiki called out as she and Akane kicked off their shoes in the foyer.

"Come see our new school uniforms!" Akane yelled excitedly into the house. "They're absolutely adorable!"

Moments later, Soun, Genma, Nodoka, and Kasumi came to the front hall and gave the two younger girls a look over as they turned about slowly.

"Yes, very nice," their father said, nodding thoughtfully. "I approve of the new design."

"Indeed, Tendo," Genma nodded. "It's a very pragmatic design, and will not get in the way of their movements."

"They're darling," Nodoka beamed at the girls. "Here, let me take some pictures of those."

"I think they're really cute," Kasumi agreed, somehow ending up wearing one of the abbreviated cleaning aprons she had bought and being herded next to her sisters as Aunty Saotome took pictures of the three of them together. Afterwards, the four rejoined the men on the front veranda.

"They already handed out copies of the revised girls' dress code," Nabiki stated, pulling out a couple of loose sheets to show them. "Mind you, these look like they were typed up in a hurry, and they have to fix some typos, but from what I understand Furinkan High has an ongoing rush job deal with a local publishing house, so we should be getting the complete versions of our current student handbooks tomorrow."

"See?" Akane pointed out a _very_ short sub-list partway down the page. "The new gym uniform for girls is just white socks and red exercise shoes, with wrist and head bands being optional! It's great - no more wedgies from those snug bloomer shorts we had to wear before!"

"That's nice," Soun stated agreeably. "Now do either of you have any homework?"

"No, Daddy," Nabiki replied. "There was an impromptu assembly after lunch today, so most of the afternoon classes were divided between free periods, pop quizzes, and reviews. I did the assignments I got during the morning classes then."

"Me too," Akane put in, "although my gym class was in the afternoon."

"Well then, since you have some free time, why don't you girls join Nodoka and go out and have some fun?" Soun suggested. "Genma and I are setting up a surprise for you all later, so here's some coupons you can use for dinner and snacks. Please stay out until eight or nine, everything should be finished by then."

"Oh, I know _just_ the thing to wear!" Kasumi exclaimed, heading for the closet and returning with three pairs of white socks and three color coordinated sets of running shoes and wristwatches. "Akane, your set is the red one, and Nabiki's is green, while I'll be wearing the blue set."

"For a moment I thought you were going to match us with our sentai colors," Nabiki chided as she removed her scanty school uniform, handing it to Kasumi.

"Aw… That would have been cool!" Akane pouted as she too handed what she had been wearing to her eldest sister.

"Akane and Nabiki," Nodoka admonished, "your sister has had a hard day's training already. Take those back and run them to the washroom yourselves!"

"Yes, Aunty!" the two naked girls chorused, then proceeded to do so.

In short order, everyone was on the front walkway, Nodoka in her kimono and wooden sandals, the three sisters wearing color coordinated running shoes, socks, and watches (and a hair ribbon in Kasumi's case), as Soun and Genma saw them off, themselves wearing gi as usual. After a few more pictures, the women headed on their way, as the men set out in another direction…

O O O

R'hul directed the viewpoint of his scrying to the nesting structures immediately around the one he was hiding in once he realized that the various younglings from the educational crèche that the queenling, Nabiki of Tendo, attended were returning to their homes. As the mirror swept through each house in turn, determining if there was a young adult present, if he or she was effected by the geasa array, and if they passed it onto their sires, R'hul desided that he was safe enough for now without making any of the neighbors mysteriously disappear.

He'd try to take a better look at how far his little experiment had progressed afterwads. And after _that_, the disguised c'thulhoid decided, it was time to try to scope out a better place to hide before he had to either start hunting or summoning minions to do it for him. It usually wasn't a good idea to use local minions for this purpose until you were sure what they were actually capable of. And while R'hul _did_ value the feral young adults he had managed to enthrall to his will after a fashion, he rather doubted their ability to select, capture, and return with the kind of prey he would need soon. At least, not without creating the wrong kind of ruckus and either getting themselves killed, or worse, leading any local defenders right to him.

O O O

"I'm home," Gosenkugi called out as he walked through the door and closed it behind him. Surprizingly, he heard the television being shut off hurriedly, followed by the barely audible sound of rabidly approaching steps. He froze in horror as he half expected to see his own mother either wearing very little or nothing at all, just like the girls of Furinkan High and most of the women he had seen on the way home.

"Oh, Hikaru! I'm glad you're safe," Gosunkugi's mother exclaimed, dressed in her usual house clothes, much to his relief. "Um… I'm sorry, but I can't let you watch any T.V. tonight…"

"That's alright, Mother," he assured her. "I have some work to do up in my room anyway."

"Well, you do that then," Mrs. Gosenkugi said, giving her son a brief hug before sending him on his way.

Once Gosunkugi reached his room, he closed the doors and started rifling through his collection of mystic, semi-mystic, quasi-mystic, new age, and fantasy tomes, manga, and magazines. The curse, whatever it was, had to be a _lot_ more powerful than he had originally thought if it had already spread so far from school.

Somehow, he thought, hastily designed wards made with pencil and notebook paper just wasn't going to cut it.

Opening an aptly named copy of Curses & Counters, the pale boy quickly browsed through the index, trying to find anything resembling a similar case that might have happened before…

O O O

Kodachi could only wonder in bemusement at the bare spectacle the women of Nerima were making of themselves as she hopped from rooftop to rooftop. Granted, the district _was_ noted for its oddities, but many of those were simply attributed, or she recently suspected misattributed, to the collection of many unusual martial arts styles practiced in the region. Sure, one would hear word of, or occasionally witness, the occasional nude martial artist who had somehow managed to lose their attire far from his or her abode, but those were actually pretty rare. Or relatively rare at any rate, yesterday's bathhouse incident notwithstanding.

This, however, was on a whole different level. Most of the women she could see were wearing little more than shoes and stockings, with whatever garments they _did_ adorn their torsos with obviously designed or altered to leave their bosoms and neither regions bare. As brazen as it all was, some of the outfits managed to _somehow_ pull off an air of tastefulness despite providing no more physical modesty than any of the other scanty ensembles. Which is to say: none at all.

And then there were the women wearing nothing but pet collars or variations of bridal and halter strap sets. Which was actually kind of nostalgic, really, as it reminded Kodachi of what her mother occasionally wore for training before she disappeared. Or at least that's what her parents _claimed_ to be what those outfits were for the few times she had caught her mother wearing them. She presumed, however, that they were actually playing some sort of game instead.

The women she saw pretending to be kitties and ponies seemed to be having enough fun to support that assumption.

Oh, look! There was Aunty Saotome and the Tendo sisters, walking down the street! Aunty was still wearing her kimono, but the three girls with her wore nothing but socks, running shoes, and in Kasumi's case, a hair ribbon, all color coordinated with their watchbands. Actually kind of cute, if a bit creepy, given that they appeared entirely too comfortable given their attitudes the previous day.

Dropping down to find out what was going on, Kodachi briefly experienced a faint mental pressure which she promptly forgot. Along with her school uniform and leotard which she had removed with the speed and casual showmanship of an expert stage magician, and discarded into a nearby public waste receptacle without even thinking about it.

"Fancy finding you girls out and about today," the nearly naked gymnast greeted the Tendo sisters, totally oblivious to her concerns of only moments ago. "Would you mind if I joined you?"

"That would be lovely," Kasumi responded agreeably, smiling at her sisters' new friend. Beside her, Nodoka also smiled and nodded.

"Hi, Kodachi!" Akane greeted cheerfully, giving her new friend a quick hug that squished their bare breasts together, accompanied by a friendly kiss on the lips. With tongue.

"The more they merrier," Nabiki quipped. Then she tilted her head and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Although, if we're all going out together, we _should_ get you a matching outfit…"

With that, the five women sought out a few stores, from which they replaced Kodachi's school shoes with running shoes, watch and hair tie, all in black.

During this time, Nodoka herself discarded her traditional kimono and geta, replacing them with a teal version of one of the new abbreviated blazer designs that left her ample bosom bare, thigh high black nylon stockings, and comfortable but nice looking matching pumps.

"Oh, you look _lovely_, Aunty!" Kodachi complimented the older woman sincerely.

"I agree," put in Akane.

"It's a good look for you, Aunty," Kasumi confirmed.

"Looking _hot_, Aunty!" Nabiki commented with a smirk. "You should definitely get a rise out of your husband. And I mean that in a good way!"

"Oh, we already took care of _that_ shortly after Genma reunited with me yesterday, Nabiki," Nodoka replied with a wink. "And again after we got home last night. Although I suppose the two of us still have ten years of catching up to do…" she ended on a thoughtful note.

Nabiki whistled lewdly as the three other girls blushed at the images brought to their minds.

Not once did any of them notice anything odd about the greatly diminished selection of women's clothes in any of the shops they visited, even as the employees were removing articles in bulk and replacing them with a much more limited collection of severely altered garments…

O O O

"Argh!" Kei rubbed her temples in an effort to stave off the oncoming headache she could feel forming. "Of _course_ something like this has to happen when we're supposed to be trying to contact the bouncing body-paint brats!" She was, of course, very frustrated about not being able to leave the building out of concern for falling under the curse herself.

Not that her magical girl outfit was much better, if not actually _worse_ than what was rapidly becoming the predominant state of women's apparel in Nerima. At least from a sheer eye sore stance. Kei had no idea what she would do if she ever caught herself _liking_ the stupid uniform Koko had stuck her with.

"As best as we've been able to determine from remote observation, the curse seems to spread through a combination of proximity and sight," Seito summarized from the new reports. "The closer someone is to a victim when they see them, the more likely they are to get effected themselves. It's also somewhat staged in that those farther away are more likely to dismiss the oddity as someone else's problem, while those who stray too close actually pick up one or more of the aberrant behaviors."

"Yeah, yeah," Kei snorted. "And while it's spreading with alarming speed throughout Nerima, the process becomes much slower the further away it expands from the epicenter. Although those still effected remain cursed even once they pass the point where it no longer effects new people. Speaking of which, has anyone actually nailed down where the epicenter actually _is_ yet?"

"Not yet," Seito shook his head. "With no reports of the earliest instances, and the randomness of dispersal, the effected area is already too large and uneven to pinpoint the source. Best guess, if it's a retribution curse is the gravel lot where the Tendo girls killed the c'thulhoid yesterday. On the other hand, if it's another demon, all bets are off."

"Well, we'll know for sure about the first once the lot is purified," Kei commented. "Good thing that priests and shrine maidens seem to be unaffected."

"So far, anyway," Seito agreed. "We'll see what happens when they reach the lot. I have long distance spotters keeping tabs on their progress."

O O O

Miyu openly wept as she pulled the rickshaw her father and completely naked mother were riding on a romantic make-out tour of one the larger local parks. She herself was wearing nothing but one of the more kinky versions of that thrice damned pony-girl gear, including a ball-gag bit, short hoof-boots, and a pony-ear headband.

If Hikaru Gosenkugi didn't solve the problem by lunchtime tomorrow, she silently swore, she was personally going to walk right up to him and knee him in the balls!

O O O

Five woman looked around as they entered the battle damaged section of Nerima.

"Oh my!"

"Oh dear…"

"That's… rather impressive," Kodachi put in, having seen it the previous day, but taking it in under the new light as she now knew the destruction had been caused by a friend.

"In Nabiki's defense, she thought I had just been killed at the time," Akane explained.

"Please," Nabiki replied as her head sagged and her shoulders slumped, "don't remind me…"

Nodoka looked at the depressed young woman and saw the heavy burden of guilt weighing down upon her. Thinking deeply for a moment, she barely noticed, and promptly forgot, as another wave of mental pressure encountered and latched onto one of her more… _unusual_… quirks. Nodding, she reached out and put her hands on the poor girls shoulders.

"Nabiki."

"Yes, Aunty?" Nabiki looked up at the older woman's face.

"While I can understand that you thought Akane was dead, and I approve of the fact that you sought to avenge her, this… this is entirely too much."

"I know, Aunty," Nabiki started to look down again.

"_Look at me!_" Nodoka scolded, causing the young woman to flinch and do so. "Nabiki, you have caused an untold amount of damage by your thoughtless and uncontrolled tantrum. Even with the punishment that your elder sister came up with, I can see that this weighs heavily upon your young bosom."

"Yes, Aunty," Nabiki agreed, her voice strained into a hoarse whisper, as tears began to form.

"Are you ready to bare additional punishment for the inconvenience you put these people through?"

"Yes, Aunty," Nabiki nodded.

"Then I want you to swear, on your _honor_, that you will wear no more clothing than you are _right now_, even if everyone else around you is fully attired from head to toe. That when you are at school, that you will wear nothing other than uniforms similar to what you wore today. That, if the situation warrants formal or professional attire, that you will wear no more than an outfit similar to what I myself am wearing right now. The _only_ exception to this will be when you are in your magically empowered state, as you will naturally be wearing whatever costume your transformation provides. Nabiki Tendo, on your honor, do you so swear?"

Stepping back, Nabiki took a breath, and began speaking, "I, Nabiki Tendo, swear _on my honor_, to wear no more clothing than you are _right now_, even if everyone else around me is fully attired from head to toe. That when I am at school, that I will wear nothing other than uniforms similar to what I wore today. That, if the situation warrants formal or professional attire, that I will wear no more than an outfit similar to what Aunty Saotome is wearing right now. The _only_ exception to this will be when I am in my magically empowered state, as I will naturally be wearing whatever costume your transformation provides!" Bowing deeply, Nabiki stood back up and let out a breath.

"I don't understand," Akane wondered with her head tilted to one side. "Why all the fuss over getting Nabiki to swear to dress like we are today? What's so special about that, Aunty?"

"Fashions come and fashions go, Akane," Nodoka explained. "And while there's nothing wrong with the current fad, it will no doubt end once the weather turns cooler, and there is no guarantee that the style will return next spring, or anytime after that for that matter. So Nabiki will be _inconvenienced_, at the very least. Besides, since you and Kasumi decided to join her in the punishment she was _already_ going through, I could see that she was feeling guilty about that as well, so this just made it more personal."

"Oh," was all Akane could say.

"Anyway, I have no doubt that Nabiki can keep her pledge," Nodoka smiled blithely. "After all, I doubt that she'd be _too_ put out having to wear the current style even after it becomes outdated. Besides, I know for a fact that she wouldn't enjoy the consequences of foreswearing her pledge. Having her arms removed would be quite painful, not to mention her torso cleaved just under her bosom afterwards so that her head and breasts can be stuffed and mounted on a wall plaque like a trophy."

Upon hearing this, the young woman listening to Nodoka Saotome did a hard face fault, all four of them wondering for the first time if the older woman might be insane. None of them noting that the geasa inflicting them almost broke under the strain of their incredulity…

O O O

"Hold up, Tendo."

"What is it, Saotome?"

"I think I see my brother down that way…" Genma adjusted his glasses, squinted, and looked again. "It _is_ him! And my niece, if I'm not mistaken!"

"Isn't that a boy, Saotome?"

"Ryoma has issues," Genma explained. "He's insisted Ryunosuke is a boy ever since his wife died. She wanted to come with Ranma and I and join our training journey the last time we visited, eight years ago. At the time, I refused because she was a girl, but now…"

"Do you think she might become one of Ranma's magical girls?"

"Perhaps, Tendo, but I owe her training anyway, if she still wants it. Besides, I owe my brother something as well…"

The two men soon caught up to the youth pulling her father along in a tumbrel.

Ryunosuke, grunted at the sudden increase in weight and looked back. "What the hell! Why did you two freeloaders hop… Uncle Genma! Is that you?"

"I see you're still treating my niece like a boy, Ryoma," Genma commented as Soun inspected what he still thought to be a rather bishonen young man.

"My _boy_ is ten times the man that your _daughter_ is, Genma!" Ryoma shouted at his older brother, earning an elbow to the gut. "Oof!"

"Ranma is no more a girl than Ryunosuke is a boy, idiot! I swear you do that to piss everyone off!"

"I agree!" Ryunosuke piped in happily, stopping and turning around. She could tell that the man her Uncle had come with was _still_ confused.

"And what foul storm brings you back into my life, Genma? I can't house you or my _niece_ this time since the Hama Tea House has been destroyed. My _son_ and I have been living on campus at the Tomobiki school store since then. We don't have room for anyone else."

"Actually, Ryoma, I thought I would offer my _niece_ the chance to train in the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. That is, if _she_ is still interested?"

"Really! You bet I am!"

"I refuse! I need _him_ for to help me run the store!"

"Need I remind you about a certain _training manual?_ I'm sure Ranma will be _thrilled_ to know who gave it to me in the first place."

"You actually _used_ that thing! My niece should still despise you for being a moron!"

"And what will Nodoka think when I tell her how you've been treating our niece?"

"You wouldn't!" Ryoma responded fearfully.

"I just reunited with her yesterday. _And_ confessed to every bit of stupidity that I committed since I started the journey. While she's been _far_ more forgiving than I deserve, she's _is_ still a _bit_ displeased about the Nekoken training I put Ranma through. If I told her _who_ I got it from…"

"Bah, fine! Take the boy! Just don't come crawling back to me when it all goes to hell! Boy! Go with your uncle to find out where you are staying now. You can come by and pick up your things later." With that, Ryoma hopped off the cart and took the handles from his 'son.' "Now _get off,_ you fools! I'm not giving you a free ride!"

Watching her father tromp off, Ryunosuke's spirits lifted. She was certain that her aunt and uncle would let her be the girl she was, although she had little idea about how to actually be feminine. And she was thrilled to be able to see her cousin, Ranma, again after all this time, and finally join him in martial arts training.

O O O

Ukyo Kuonji quickly packed up some things in an overnight bag, grabbed her bandoleer of specialized throwing spatulas and the huge baker's peel sized spatula she used for heavy melee, and ran out the door of her apartment, forgetting to lock it in her haste.

Moments ago, she had been watching the news coverage of the strange goings on in the Nerima district. Which, in and of itself was highly unusual and more than a bit disconcerting, and she had been debating leaving Tokyo when word that whatever was causing women in Nerima to dress that way was slowly spreading into neighboring districts, such as Itabashi, where her current apartment was located. Hell, she had already packed up once and been turned away from the train station by people from the Center of Disease Control, and had just unpacked and turned to news back on, only to discover that small isolated cases where popping up all over Honshu as far away as Sendai and Kobe, so travel to and from the entire island was cut off before it could spread any farther.

As bad as _that_ was, and Ukyo certainly wasn't looking forward to when _she_ succumbed and ended up serving okonomiyaki wearing nothing but shoes, socks, and an apron, that _wasn't_ what had gotten her attention. In the background of one of the news reports coming live from Nerima (in which, strangely enough, none of Nerima's local reporters seemed to even be _aware_ that what was going on wasn't just some popular new fashion trend) she had seen them! _Them!_ The bane of her existence since they had left her behind while simultaneously stealing her father's okonomiyaki yatai!

"Prepair yourselves, Genma and Ranma Saotome! I'm going to find you soon, and when I do, you are going to _pay!_"

Thunder crashed dramatically in the background, and soon thereafter it began to rain…

O O O

The small group of five women raced through the pouring rain that had started up, ducking into the first open door they could reach.

"Welcome to the Cha Cha Maru," greeted a young redheaded waitress dressed in black high heeled shoes, thigh-high fishnet stockings, a set of floating shirt cuffs and collar with a black bow tie, and an abbreviated apron barely even _half_ the size of any they had seen yet which utterly failed to cover anything at all. "My name is Akemi, and I'll be serving you today."

In short order, the group was seated, and the waitress left them to see to other customers as they looked over the small menu.

"I don't know what it is, but something just feels off," Akane said.

"You mean, besides the fact that the waitress never asked for any of our I.D.s?" Nabiki asked dryly.

"It's not that," Akane countered, having forgotten that pubs, bars, and taverns typically did so as a matter of routine. At least in sections where alcohol was served regularly. "It's been bugging me off and on all day, but I can't seem to put my finger on it…"

"Don't worry your pretty little tits over it, Akane," Nabiki chided her younger sister.

"_Nabiki!_" Akane nearly screeched, scandalized at what her sister had said.

"Now, Nabiki," Kasumi interjected, "You know Akane's a little sensitive about the size of her breasts. While there is nothing wrong with them, of course, they have yet to blossom to the extent that ours have."

"It's all the extra exercise she does," Nabiki replied dryly, "burns off most of the fat before it gets where it needs to be. She needs to eat more, is all."

And as the women discussed this and other topics while they waited for the rain to let up, they completely forgot about the uneasy feeling Akane had mentioned…

O O O

Miyu pulled the covered rickshaw down the now empty streets through the heavy rain, breasts bouncing painfully as she was compelled to maintain the canter her parents had set for her. If anything, she was grateful for the downpour despite the fact that she was soaking wet, cold, and could hardly see due to the water running into her eyes. This was because she could now barely hear her parents, who had long since passed the heavy petting stage and had been making disturbing noises for over an hour now.

She was tired, hungry, _thirsty_ despite being soaking wet due to the ball-gag, humiliated, and embarrassed. She already knew that by the time her folks finally decided to return home, that she would be so exhausted that she'd barely be able to wash up and have a nice hot soak in the furo so that her abused muscles wouldn't become one solid cramp. After that, she would drag herself straight to bed and collapse. Hopefully after she had at least gotten into it.

There was no way she'd be able to even get _started_ on her homework tonight, let alone finish it. Fortunately, since none of the afternoon classes had given any, the load was light and she could probably finish her assignments in the morning, before she left for school.

Gosenkugi was _so_ getting a knee to his family jewels if he didn't come through with a cure by lunchtime tomorrow…

O O O

"Who's this?" Akane asked suspiciously as she saw a boy sitting with her and Sensei's fathers as she, her sisters, Kodachi, and Aunty Nodoka entered the family room.

"This is my niece, Ryunosuke," Genma replied. "She will be joining you girls for training, at least for tonight. Afterwards, we'll have to see whether she continues training with you, or accompanies my on my new journey."

"Looks kinda like Ranma," Nabiki mused, speculatively.

"I don't see it," Akane countered, tilting her head. "Sensei looks nothing like that… Ow! Why'd you smack me!" she complained, rubbing her abused bottom dramatically, despite the fact that it hadn't really hurt.

"From the picture on the postcard, Dummy!" Nabiki admonished. "So where's she staying?"

"Tonight," Soun started, "Ryunosuke will be staying with you girls in the yard by the back gate. Kodachi too, if she's willing. Genma and I set up for your next training exercise there."

"Which I still say is ten levels of freaky," the girl who was _still_ dressed as a boy, and currently actually happy to remain that way, remarked.

"Do you want to train in the Anything Goes style or not?" Genma asked his niece once again. "I refuse to force you until you actually start, but I'll have you know that Ranma went through this exact same training years ago and is now quite good at it!"

"Why, Genma and I _also_ did this training back under our old master. As did Nodoka and my wife under _their_ respective masters. It's really an essential part of the school, even though I had yet to teach Akane any of it."

"Fine, fine," Ryunosuke put her arms up in a brief gesture of resignation. "I'll do it. I still think it's ten levels of freaky though."

"What is this training?" Akane asked, hopping up and down in a way that reminded Nabiki of her hyper state the previous night.

Pulling out some ropes and leather straps from… somewhere… Genma replied. "How to escape from ropes and other bindings, of course!"

At this point, Soun and Genma led everyone to a variety of tall, thick wooden posts and beams, and sturdy metal frames set up behind the dojo near the small rear gate of the compound.

"Tonight," Genma began, "all of you will be bound without any instructions on escape techniques. You are to attempt to get free with neither help from us nor even eachother. If any of you _does_ manage to get loose, you may come inside to set up a sleeping mat in the first floor guest room for the rest of the night. Soun or I will come out in the morning to release any of you who failed to complete your initial evaluation."

"Now, Genma and I were undecided as to whether or not to have your fisrt evaluation test be reletively simple, or to challenge you against a far more challenging puzzle of bonds and knots."

"I've had bondage escape training before," Kodachi stated with some pride. "I believe I shall test myself against your challenge."

"Me too!" Akane piped up, feeling competitive.

Nabiki huffed in annoyance before speaking. "I may as well take the challenge too, or Akane will never let me hear the end of it."

"Not me," Ryunosuke put in. "I _know_ I'm a beginner, so I'd like to practice against the simple set up first."

"Oh my, I believe I would prefer the simple test as well," Kasumi stated.

"Okay then," Soun instructed. "Kasumi and Ryunosuke, both of you assume a kneeling position now, heels to buttocks, knees together, and arms folded behind your backs, box style."

The Tendo patriarch soon tied his eldest daughter's wrists to her opposite elbows, running the rope from there to her ankles, tying them together before finally wrapping it up around her upper thighs, forcing her to remain in a seated position. After making sure all of the knots were properly tied, he then placed a ball-gag in her mouth, buckling the leather strap, and concluded by giving one of his eldest daughter's breasts a comforting, fatherly squeeze. Looking over at Genma's progress with Ryunosuke, the only major difference was that the other girl was still fully dressed as a boy.

"Genma!" Nodoka admonished, "You didn't give Ryu-chan a chance to undress and display her feminine charms like a proper lady! Fix that right now!"

"But Dear," Genma countered as the crossdressing girl ineffectually tried to protest through her gag, "Ryunosuke told Soun and i that she'd like to continue dressing as a boy for now."

"Nonsense," Nodoka shook her head dismissively, "the poor girl is obviously too shy to know what's good for her. Get it all off of her immediately!"

Within moments, Genma had torn away every single scrap of clothing from Ryunosuke without undoing a single knot of her bonds.

"There, see?" Nodoka cupped her niece's breast in her hands and lifted them up gently, "you shouldn't be ashamed of these beauties, Ryu-chan! You should be _proud_ to display your ample bosom for everyone to see!"

"Mmph!" Ryunosuke shook her head in denial, blushing.

*SHING!*

The formerly crossdressing girl paled as she realised that her exposed boobs were now draped over a naked katana blade with it's edge faced upwards.

"Young lady," Nodoka admonished sternly, "you _will_ display your bare bosom for all to see from now on, or I will cut them off myself and make throw pillows out of them! Do you understand me?"

Ryunosuke hasitly nodded as everyone else sweatdropped. "That's better," Nodoka smiled as she carefully withdrew the blade without cutting her niece's flesh. "This will be good for you, you'll see."

With that out of the way, Soun and Genma proceded to tie up the other three girls using the more challenging method.

They were placed on their backs with their calves tucked under their armpits and their ankles tied together behind their neck. Their arms, in return, were wrapped around their thighs, with their wrists tied together behind their lower backs. With the way their faces were forced into their own breasts, Nabiki imagined that they looked like demented baskets, each with three mutant coconuts in them. And then, as if that wasn't enough, additional ropes were tied around both of their upper arms and thighs and they were hoisted up off the ground, suspended from overheads post like a set of erotic hanging basket seats. Finally, like Kasumi and Ryunosuke before them, each was fitted with a ball-gag.

"Oh, don't they just look so adorable like that?" Nodoka gushed. "I simply _must_ take some pictures of them all bound up for their first night of training!"

O O O

After Nodoka had taken several pictures of each girl seperately and as a group, the three adults spent most of the remainder of the evening actually sitting in the living basket seats, with Nodoka on Kodachi, Soun on Akane, and Genma not only on Nabiki but also having his feet propped up on Ryunosuke's shoulders. Engaging in idle conversation as if none of the girls were really there, they reminisced over old times until it began to rain again, at which time they hastily returned to the main house, leaving the girls for the rest of the night.

As the three adults left the five young women tied up in the back yard behind the dojo, Kodachi could not help but think that this was _still_ not the strangest thing she had ever done for training…

**END CHAPTER SEVEN**

O O O

**OMAKE THEATER PRESENTS: **_There's Research, and Then There's…_

"I'm home," Gosenkugi called out as he walked through the door and closed it behind him. Surprizingly, he heard the television being shut off hurriedly, followed by the barely audible sound of rabidly approaching steps. He froze in horror as he half expected to see his own mother either wearing very little or nothing at all, just like the girls of Furinkan High and most of the women he had seen on the way home.

"Oh, Hikaru! I'm glad you're safe," Gosunkugi's mother exclaimed, dressed in her usual house clothes, much to his relief. "Um… I'm sorry, but I can't let you watch any T.V. tonight…"

"That's alright, Mother," he assured her. "I have some work to do up in my room anyway."

"Well, you do that then," Mrs. Gosenkugi said, giving her son a brief hug before sending him on his way.

Once Gosunkugi reached his room, he closed the doors and started rifling through his collection of mystic, semi-mystic, quasi-mystic, new age, and fantasy tombs, manga, and magazines. The curse, whatever it was, had to be a _lot_ more powerful than he had originally thought if it had already spread that far from school.

Somehow, he thought, hastily designed wards made with pencil and notebook paper just wasn't going to cut it.

Reaching for an issue of Cyber Senshi Cutey Moon, he hoped to find an image of any of the wards used by the sexy android, Rei Hino, used, either in her shrine maiden disguise or as the seifuku clad pyrotechnic beauty, Cyber Senshi Cutey Mars…

O O O

**OMAKE THEATER PART TWO PRESENTS: **_Nodoka is Very Strange…_

"I don't understand," Akane wondered with her head tilted to one side. "Why all the fuss over getting Nabiki to swear to dress like we are today? What's so special about that, Aunty?"

"Fashions come and fashions go, Akane," Nodoka explained. "And while there's nothing wrong with the current fad, it will no doubt end once the weather turns cooler, and there is no guarantee that the style will return next spring, or anytime after that for that matter. So Nabiki will be _inconvenienced_, at the very least. Besides, since you and Kasumi decided to join her in the punishment she was _already_ going through, I could see that she was feeling guilty about that as well, so this just made it more personal."

"Oh," was all Akane could say.

"Anyway, I have no doubt that Nabiki can keep her pledge," Nodoka smiled blithely. "After all, I doubt that she'd be _too_ put out having to wear the current style even after it becomes outdated. Besides, I know for a fact that she wouldn't enjoy the consequences of foreswearing her pledge. Being publicly bound and covered in cinnamon and honey to be licked clean by her fiancé as everyone watches..."

"Actually, come to think of it, Genma and I already did that one, and other than some embarrasment, it wasn't really all that bad after all. I guess I'll have to come up with something else…"

Hair toined out on the heads of the young woman listening to Nodoka Saotome…


End file.
